


Potent As Blood

by recoveringrabbit



Series: A Love Story With Detective Interruptions [5]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: 1930s, Established Relationship, F/M, Murder Mystery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-30
Updated: 2016-12-09
Packaged: 2018-07-11 04:01:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 31
Words: 174,211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7027633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/recoveringrabbit/pseuds/recoveringrabbit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>1938: Fitz and Jemma have settled into their new lives quite nicely, thank you; being together is so blindingly perfect that neither the turbulent political situation or the corpse they discovered at a benefit in July can dampen their spirits entirely. They know they're luckier than most. Then, all at once, they are sucked into a maelstrom of deadly serious business: the deceased's family asks them to investigate the murder; Jemma and her friend Sylvia descend to the depths of London's socialist underworld in an attempt to save Sylvia's fiance; Fitz must create a weapon for a shadowy member of the government who relies on veiled threats rather than patriotism to get things done. As September marches on, FitzSimmons find themselves increasingly in over their heads, losing sight of essentials and fighting desperately to uncover the truth before everything falls apart—the world, their lives, or their relationship.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Calm Before The Storm

Fitz heard the door open in a half-awake haze and promptly rolled over, squeezing his eyes shut to feign sleep. Not that Lane was fooled by this little charade, but since Fitz had not yet been able to either dismiss the valet or convince him he was capable of running his own bath, they had settled on a policy of mutual pretense. Face buried under the pillow, Fitz let his mind wander down pleasant paths as he mentally ticked off the steps in Lane’s Waking The Master Routine: First the curtains, flung open to let the mid-July light come blazing in. Next the tray on the bedside table, laden with tea already milked and sugared, an egg, and a great deal of toast. Then Fitz waited for the nearly silent footsteps to trail away into the bathroom to start the water while Lane addressed any wardrobe situations—a daily battle between two strong wills. Instead, though, the steps came around the other side and paused. Well, perhaps a pillow had fallen—he nearly squeaked as the mattress beside him dipped, listing him to the right. What the devil? He burrowed further in, hoping it looked natural. This was breaking all their unspoken rules and he wasn’t sure how to handle it.

The mattress creaked again. Then two cold hands snuck beneath his shoulders and one cold nose rubbed across his cheek, and a smile spread across his face as the world made sense again. Cracking one eye open, he shifted enough to meet her warm brown gaze dead on. “Good morning.”

His wife bent down and kissed the patch of skin by his ear. “Good morning, sweetheart.”

Enveloped in her lavender scent, Fitz saw no reason to get up and simply rolled onto his back, closing his eyes contentedly and reaching one hand out to grasp her wrist. “Thank goodness it’s you. I thought Lane had gone round the bend.”

“Admittedly, I was a little worried at your lack of reaction, but you were so adorable I couldn’t bear to spoil the ruse.”

His fingers stopped rubbing at the cuff of her blouse. “I’m adorable when I sleep?”

“Yes, but more so when you’re pretending to be asleep because you’re afraid of your manservant.”

“Jemma!” His eyes flew open, his indignation meeting her smirk. “I am not afraid of Lane.”

She patted his chest tolerantly as she sat back and flung her skirt across the bed, reaching for the cup of tea on her bedside table in one easy motion. “Yes, darling. Whatever you say.”

“Hullo pot,” he said, pushing himself up against the headboard and reaching for his own cup. “Which of us has a ladies’ maid who does exactly none of the tasks for which she is paid?”

“She mends my clothes when necessary.” She relented only slightly under his incredulous look. “All right, they’re all new and haven’t needed mending yet. But she will!”

“Mmhmm.”

“Honestly, Fitz, she’s still young and needs her sleep. Why force her to rouse herself before dawn when I am perfectly capable of doing for myself?”

“Speaking of your ungodly sleeping patterns,” he said.

She waved a dismissive hand. “Oh, I’ve been up for ages. Had my bath, ate breakfast with your mother, gone over our schedules for the week, read the paper—”

“Anything important?”

“Herr Hitler’s brought some down new restrictions down on the Jews, it’s truly awful, Fitz—and waylaid Lane so he would let me bring in your tray. I will say he’s quite supercilious. One rather receives the impression you’d prefer him to me.”

“Never,” he said, “in fact I’m wondering what I did to deserve this pleasure. Is it”—he shot a surreptitious glance around the room and lowered his voice—“is it about last night? Because I’m fairly certain I can do better than that with practice.”

A pink tinge rose to her cheeks and crept into her ears, and she ducked her head to hide her smile. Oh, how he loved making his wife blush. “I look forward to letting you try,” she said primly, then shrieked as he lunged forwards. “Not now, Fitz, you fool! You’ll muss me.”

“So?” he growled, bracing a hand on either side of her hips and kissing the spot at the corner of her jaw and throat that never failed to pay dividends.

She shivered, but put her free hand firmly on his chest and pushed him away. “I haven’t got time, Fitz, and neither have you. That’s why I stayed this morning; if we don’t see each other now we won’t at all until late this evening.” Reaching across him, she retrieved the tray and set it firmly across his lap. “Eat your egg.”

“This evening?” he repeated, staring at her in dismay even in the face of a perfectly boiled egg. “What about lunch?”

“It’s my day at Oxford, remember? I’ll be dining in Hall before my lecture.”

“Bother,” he seethed, rapping the eggshell with more force than necessary. He couldn’t resent Jemma’s doctoral work since it made her so happy, but neither did he enjoy her forced absences. Even if they were only once a week. “What about tea then?”

She shook her head. “I’m having tea with Sylvia.”

“Who is Sylvia?”

“Sylvia Forbes?” At his blank expression, she rolled her eyes. “Fitz, you hired her personally. Do you remember any of the people who work in your office?”

“My secretary’s called Andrews.” But as he spoke, a memory appeared: a square-jawed woman with all the right answers and Jemma’s habit of twisting her fingers together nervously, sitting in his office decidedly not begging for a position. He had liked her immediately, taken her on promptly, and forgotten her almost instantly. Well, he was two weeks away from getting married at the time. He had other things on his mind. More details returning, he snapped his fingers. “Oh, Sylvia Forbes. You met her at your Gaudy. Weaver introduced you because she was out of work. She has a fiancé who’s a leech.”

Jemma, who had been nodding her agreement, frowned. “That’s not kind. You’ve never met him; how can you say he’s a leech?”

“ _You’ve_ never met him,” he countered, “how can you say he’s not?”

Gulping at her tea to buy time, she traced the pattern on the coverlet with one finger. “I just don’t think it’s kind,” she said finally. “He read Classics, I think. There’s not many positions at present for classicists who don’t teach.”

“And that’s why. Of course Miss Forbes should work if she likes but if they’re only waiting to be married until they can afford it, he ought to take what he can get.” He shrugged. “I would have done anything for you. Even mucked out stables if that’s what it took.”

The sentiment, while true, also somewhat revolted him—the mere idea of being knee-deep in manure made him shove away the rack of beautifully buttered toast. One eyebrow raised to signal her amusement, Jemma picked up a slice and folded it neatly into thirds. “It’s hardly fair to hold everyone to your high standards, though.”

“It’s not my standards. It’s the appropriate response. Maybe if Miss Forbes was as near utter perfection as you are—”

“Ugh, Fitz!” But she laughed anyway, and leaned across the tray to slide a butter-smudged kiss across his lips. “Let’s have them for dinner sometime. She’s lovely, and I’m sure Mark Jones has his own redeeming qualities.”

“All right,” he agreed easily, perfectly content to do whatever she liked, and applied himself to breakfast once more. They munched and sipped in companionable silence until another thought struck him. “Hold up, why won’t we see each other at dinner?”

She delicately wiped the corners of her mouth with her fingertips. “Ah. Well, we will, but only for one course, I’m afraid. We’ve got that benefit tonight—the Osbournes, for victims of the Spanish war? I did tell you, Fitz.”

Groaning, he buried his face in his hands. “You did. I remember. Just forgot it was today. Are you sure we have to go?”

“Yes.”

He peeked between his fingers beseechingly. “We can’t use our ‘recently married’ excuse?”

“We’ve been married nearly three months. People will talk.” Setting her cup down on the tray, she twined her fingers with his and pulled their clasped hands to her chest. Her eyes, soft and melting, glowed brighter than the sun streaming across her face. “You know you’re not meant to actually be in love with me. It isn’t done. I’m only your wife, after all.”

His heart stuttered in his chest and the words, nearly poetry in his head, tripped over his tongue. “You’re all the wife I want, and all the mistress too. Jemma, you know, don’t you, that you’re all I want at all?”

A smile fought its way to her lips, nearly blinding him. “I know.” Loosing one of her hands, she brought it to his cheek and pulled his contented grin to meet hers. “And good job, too, because it’s quite mutual.”

She giggled as he eagerly closed the miniscule gap, moving up onto her knees to allow better access. One hand on her neck and the other still tight with hers between their hearts, Fitz was surrounded by her: the taste of tea and the smell of lavender and the feel of her skin under his fingers, every molecule more precious to him than his own life, every glorious bit of her his privilege to have and to hold. Before they married he had thought he couldn’t love her any more than he already did, but he had been wrong. From the first morning he woke up to her in their bed his life had slowly reoriented itself to revolve around her sun; the mystical union referred to in the wedding service had taken grip of his heart and spread through his bones, and he no longer could imagine life without her. Lord, he was a sap, he thought as he drew the kiss to a close and rested his forehead against hers. They breathed in unison, neither moving.

“Used to it yet?” he asked quietly, eyes still closed.

Her fingertips ghosted over his morning whiskers and he leaned into her without thinking, like a cat. “Used to you?” she said, breathless, “no, never, Fitz. How do you become used to something miraculous?”

He looked down at her eyelashes like feathers and freckles like cinnamon sugar. “You don’t believe in miracles.”

“Just one.” Opening her eyes, she smiled into his dumbfounded expression and pressed another firm, merry kiss to his lips before clambering down from the bed. “I wish I didn’t have to go, but I’ll be late. I’ll see you tonight, though.” Her thumb rubbed across his cheek. “I know you’ll shave again before the party, but could you perhaps not be as thorough as usual?”

“Anything,” he said, watching her walk across the room as the steel cable that bound his heart to hers unspooled. “Why?”

She paused with her hand on the doorknob. There was that blush again, he noted with pleasure. “It’s just, I’m the only one that gets to see it. It reminds me you’re mine.” She smiled, no doubt at the flush rising in his own face, and blew him a kiss before opening the door. “Don’t be late!”

Fitz waited until the door closed before shoving back the tray and the covers and racing towards the bathroom. Usually he preferred a bit more dawdling over the toast and tea, but not today. If he wasn’t going to see her until this evening, he was going to get to the evening as quickly as possible.

 

* * *

 

Jemma hurried out of the cab and into the Lyons, slowing her pace as she reached the bakery counter with a polite smile for the Nippy stationed there. “My party should already be here,” she explained. “It’s all right if I go find her?”

“Of course, ma’am,” the waitress smiled back. Nodding her thanks, Jemma moved into the black-and-white rooms beyond. At four in the afternoon every Lyons was busy, the ubiquity of the chain notwithstanding; this particular location’s proximity to Paddington Station only swelled the masses. It wouldn’t be her first choice, had she only herself to please. It did, however, offer two benefits: it was a convenient midpoint between her end destination and Sylvia’s, and she could be sure her friend could afford her share of the bill. Not that she would have minded treating, but Sylvia would. Poor dear, Jemma thought as she caught sight of a patched glove waving to attract her attention. She had to fight so hard.

The glove, it became clear, was attached to the arm of a tall, good-looking girl in a well-kept suit and a hat that maintained some of its smartness, despite being several seasons old. Several bleach spots marked the skirt, Jemma noticed sympathetically when Sylvia stood to greet her. The other girl’s dimple flashed as they shook hands warmly. “I was beginning to think I had the wrong day.”

“No, sorry.” Jemma grimaced as she slid into her seat. “Got caught up in debate with Miss Weaver, and you know how that is.”

“Certainly I do. Or did, at least.” Sylvia shrugged, sitting as well. “I’ve already ordered. I hope that was all right.”

“Perfectly. She sends her regards, by the way, and said I ought to bring you up one week. She’s anxious to hear how you’re getting on.” Their common tutor had actually said _I’m afraid poor Forbes has had her brilliance beat out of her_ , but didn’t Jemma didn’t feel it necessary to be exactly accurate.

Fixedly staring at the stream of milk flooding into her teacup, Sylvia seemed to hear the pity anyway. “And what did you tell her?” she asked lightly, but her fingers whitened on the jug’s handle.

“Why, that you were far too busy with your work to take the time away.” She opened her eyes widely, trying for the picture of innocence.

Sylvia relaxed, almost imperceptibly, and handed Jemma the jug. “That’s true enough, at least. I could be in there fourteen hours a day if it was allowed.”

“If only!” she agreed fervently. “I’ve meant to come down to see you for ages but every time I’m at MI I can’t seem to leave our lab. My research is nearly spontaneously generating.”

Sylvia quirked a smile at the biologists’ joke. “Your research for your doctorate?”

“Yes.” Pouring her tea, she paused to consider. “Well, yes and no, actually. You know my research is about mitigating the affects of airborne chemical weapons?” At Sylvia’s nod, she went on. “Recently Fitz and I’ve been playing with other forms of biological and chemical weapons—like jellyfish stings, various snake venoms, and so forth. Arguably, antidotes and –serums are more necessary than chlorine-resistant gas masks. It’s rather thrilling, to be quite honest. The potential—”

She broke off as the waitress came up to their table, bearing their plate of cakes and biscuits. Sylvia’s mouth pulled to one side, but she didn’t say anything until the Nippy had gone. “Are you afraid she’ll steal your research?”

Jemma rolled her eyes. “Of course not. Only our solicitor has been very stern with Fitz and me about not discussing our work in public—he says it might get us into a great deal of trouble, depending on who overhears. Because of the defense contracts, you know. Even though this is _my_ work, people aren’t always careful about identification. And, I suppose, one never knows what the end result of an experiment might be.”

“You’re telling me, though.”

“Yes, but you’ve signed confidentiality agreements.” She smiled to let Sylvia know she didn’t mean it. “And we’re sisters in the scientific profession. If I can’t trust you, who can I trust?”

“I’ll drink to that,” Sylvia said, lifting her cup from its saucer.

Their conversation over the tea and cakes was refreshingly ordinary, apart from the continual stumbles over the forbidden subject of their work: films, a book they had both read recently, the fighting in Spain. Talking with Sylvia was nearly as good as talking with Fitz—not _as_ good, of course, because Fitz always understood what she meant and built on her ideas and disagreed just often enough to keep it interesting, but very nearly. Her company might have made Jemma’s time at Oxford more enjoyable, rather than a series of solitary if successful experiments until she met Fitz and her life blossomed into fullness. But by the time Jemma gone up, Sylvia had already disappeared into the North to teach and save while her fiancé stayed for further study. Weaver’s introduction, coming just at the time when Sylvia’s position disappeared and Fitz needed scientists for his expanding biology division, had been yet another of the serendipitous events Jemma didn’t think about too often lest they disorder her understanding of the world. Better to just enjoy the results, whatever the causes.

Deep into recounting the latest lecture she had attended at the Royal Academy, Jemma talked for three sentences before realizing the quiet laughter burbling under her words came from Sylvia. “What?” she asked, “admittedly, it is a bit short-sighted but there’s nothing inherently wrong with the concept.”

“It’s not that,” Sylvia said, unable to quite hide her amusement. “Do you realize that’s the seventh sentence in a row you’ve mentioned Mr. Fitz-Simmons?”

She wrapped her hands around her neck, uncertain whether to be ashamed or apologetic. “Is it?” she squeaked.

Sylvia laughed again, not unkindly. “It is, but don’t be embarrassed. He does the same when he comes down to observe our work.”

“He does?” No doubt now—the heat in her cheeks was certainly pleasure.

“Before you were married it was ‘Miss Simmons says’ and ‘my fiancée would suggest’; now it’s ‘my wife would really be better at this’ and ‘I shall ask Mrs. Fitz-Simmons to have a look.’” She shrugged, her mouth twisted in a not-quite-smile. “It’s going to drive the Head mad, I think, but I find it rather sweet.”

Jemma ducked her head, fully aware that her expression was quickly becoming besotted and not wanting to so blatantly flout social customs. As she had warned Fitz earlier, if they continued to be so obviously affectionate they were likely to be the subject of Much Talk. And yet she couldn’t manage to stop it pouring out of her. He ran through her thoughts like the red strand in the Navy’s ropes and her heart like the very blood in her veins; they were a covalent bond, two elements come together to create a stronger, better compound. She loved him. He was part of her. Of course she was going to talk about him. Perhaps seven sentences in a row was a bit excessive, but the further she went the more Jemma questioned how other people pretended indifference so easily.

“Oh, well,” she said, silently begging Sylvia not to comment on what she knew were very red cheeks, “I’m sure Mr. Jones does the same about you to his friends.”

The dimple disappeared, replaced instantly by a thin, brittle line that startled Jemma with its sadness. “I wouldn’t know. His friends are not the sort to share such things with me. Or anything, really. But I doubt they find me or my work very interesting.”

Sylvia took a determined sip of tea, her lips a barricade and her eyes a plea. Shifting in her seat, Jemma bit back the protests thronging to her tongue. Sylvia must be wrong—one didn’t remain engaged to a person for six years without finding them _interesting_ —but since she obviously didn’t want to discuss it, Jemma would take a page from her husband’s book and remain silent on the subject. To cover, she reached for the plate of goodies and held it out. “Another cake?” she asked, only to find that there were no more cakes to be had. Another glance revealed her watch face, resolutely chiding her with her tardiness. She yelped and jumped to her feet, Sylvia and her fiancé’s difficulties entirely forgotten. “Good lord, is that really the time?”

Sylvia checked her own watch and rose as well, albeit more politely. “I’m afraid so.”

“Bother, and after I specifically told Fitz to be on time!” He would never let her hear the end of it. Snatching her bag up from the table, she hurried toward the desk, mentally calculating her share of the bill as she went.

Sylvia’s longer legs allowed her to catch up easily. “You’ve got an engagement this evening?”

“Yes, we’re going to a benefit at the Osbournes’—Stafford Osbourne, the financier, that is—it’s for Spanish relief.”

“Yes, I know,” Sylvia said, “I very nearly went to that party myself.”

Jemma faltered for a half-step before walking more quickly, hoping to cover her lapse with a cheery smile. “Did you? I didn’t know you knew the Osbournes. We only know them through mutual friends—how funny that you’re one, as well!”

“That isn’t what you thought first.”

She turned to deny it, but Sylvia merely tucked in the corners of her mouth and indicated the girl at the desk. “You’re in a hurry, aren’t you?”

Settling up took all Jemma’s tact; no matter her insistence that she had four cups of tea to Sylvia’s two, the other woman refused to pay less than half the bill. Finally, realizing she would be toeing the line between fashionably late and rudely late, Jemma gave in all at once and dashed out to the cab stand. Sylvia followed after and stood without speaking, simply shifting her weight from foot to foot. Jemma noticed her hands playing over the clasp of her pocketbook: open, shut, open, shut. A nervous tic? Or a subtle signal?

As a cab pulled up to their position, she summoned her courage to try again. “Would you like to share a cab?” she asked as casually as possible.

Sylvia shook her head. The motion seemed to clear the dam, because her words came out in a flood. “They’re my godparents. The Osbournes, I mean. There’s been a coolness, but their daughter Daphne was always fond of me and sometimes I receive invitations still. That’s all. I didn’t want you to think—I mean—”

Watching the struggle play across her friend’s face, Jemma understood: too reserved to reference her financial duress, Sylvia couldn’t find a subtle way to explain why anyone connected to the wealthy Osbournes wouldn’t have enough money for a new hat. And of course she, Jemma Fitz-Simmons, was only making it worse with her well-meant charity. Stupid, she chastised herself. She reached across to press Sylvia’s free hand. “I know you aren’t a gate-crasher,” she joked, relieved when Sylvia’s shoulders relaxed. “I wish you were coming, but if they’re connected to you I’m sure I’ll enjoy myself. Shall I give your regards?”

“If you like,” Sylvia laughed. “But if you don’t go now you’ll never be invited again.”

“Oh Lord.” She looked frantically at her watch, imagined Fitz’s peevishness at being left to manage a party alone, groaned, and hopped into the waiting car. After giving the driver their address, she fell back onto the seat and rubbed her temples, going over her strategy: dress, jewels, spritz of perfume, and off again. And then Fitz. A smile spread over her face at the thought of him, dashing in a dinner jacket despite his discomfort, showing up everyone around him with the sheer force of his brain. How had she been so fortunate?

The cab turned around at the corner, pointing its bonnet back in the direction they had come. Staring idly out the window, Jemma spotted Sylvia trudging towards the Tube station. Her arms tucked around her torso and a furrow between her eyebrows, she looked like nothing so much as a woman caught in a downpour without an umbrella, even without a raincloud in sight. _Broken_ , Weaver had said, and watching her now Jemma had to admit the word might not be so inaccurate.

And how, she wondered with a pang, had she been so fortunate, when other people had not?


	2. Why One Shouldn't Sneak Away At Parties

Jemma was late.

Fitz wasn’t surprised, of course. Over the course of their relationship she had made tardiness something of an art—she had even been late to their wedding, leaving him to work himself into a frenzy while his poor best man ran his legs off racing up and down the aisle. Honestly, he had come to expect it. That didn’t mean he _appreciated_ it, however, particularly when it left him to attend a party solo, uncomfortable in both his evening suit and the stream of silly small talk all around him. The practice forced upon him over the last year hadn’t made him enjoy it, and all the excellent champagne in the world couldn’t lubricate the gears of conversation with some people. The man in front of him, for instance, had been talking without breath for fully six minutes now. Fitz had timed it.

Subtly peering through the throng for the thousandth time, he murmured one of his customary “oh really?” noises, hopeful encouragement would allow the diatribe to continue without requiring his further participation. The very instant his wife appeared…

“Don’t you think, mister…?”

Fitz started and put out his hand. “Mr. Fitz-Simmons.”

“Ah. Of Macpherson Industries, I believe?” The other man’s mustache twisted up into a sneer, and he gripped Fitz’s hand tightly. “It’s a surprise to see _you_ here.”

Wrenching away, Fitz made his best effort at a pleasant expression. Whatever he managed—likely not much—was instantly undone when he opened his mouth. “What exactly are you insinuating, sir?”

“Only that captains of industry aren’t known for supporting revolutionary causes. I thought you were all very much for keeping the status quo.”

So, not a slight against him personally. His fists unclenching, he was able to respond without grimacing, though Jemma still would have found fault with his tone. “Captains of industry aren’t all the same.”

“Oh, of course not. But the communist ideals are directly contrary to industry’s interests. Power to the people swings the balance far away from those who have always had it, such as yourself. If the Revolutionaries triumph in Spain—”

He held onto to his scoff with the tips of his fingernails, crossing his arms as he interrupted. “It won’t affect Britain in any substantial way. We’ve held out this long against Russia, haven’t we? Anyway, I understood this benefit was for civilian aid. We can all agree to help the innocents, I think?”

The other man’s dark eyes flashed, and he drew himself up to his full height. Fitz backed away, only partially to avoid the unpleasant reminder of his own small stature. He didn’t mind conflict, but something distinctly flammable seemed to have entered the conversation. He didn’t want to be in the way when it sparked into a blaze.

Over the roar of the party, the Osbournes’ butler called out the arrival of a very late guest: “Jemima Fitz-Simmons!”

Just in time. Heaving a sigh of relief, Fitz glanced at the man apologetically. “Sorry, that’s my wife. I had better…there’s a…” And he let the sentence trail off as he scurried towards the door, only slightly more eager to see Jemma than to get away from that conversation. Had he remained he probably would have said some things that Mr. Biggs would have frowned over. That was the nice thing about having a wife, he reflected: one always had a safe place.

“Mr. Fitz!”

He turned by instinct at his old name and swallowed back a sigh when he saw its origin: Reginald Cumberland-Boothby, an old connection of his uncle’s who seemed to think Fitz had inherited him along with Macpherson Industries. The MP stood with two other men, one of whom Fitz recognized from the papers as an up-and-coming Conservative politician and the other entirely unknown but no doubt wanting the inside information just as much as the others. Not that he could or would tell them anything—he wouldn’t curry scientific advancement for favors—but he knew from experience that they wouldn’t be put off. Now he had made eye contact, he would be trapped for a quarter-hour at least.

Cumberland-Boothby called again, motioning him over. “Come here, my boy. I haven’t seen you in age.”

He slid toward the group obediently. “Well, I’ve been away, you know. On my honeymoon. It’s Mr. Fitz-Simmons now.”

Still at the entrance to the party, Jemma handed off her wrap and immediately began searching the room for Fitz. Poor darling, she had left him by himself for nearly half an hour, according to her mother-in-law’s information. Much longer and she wouldn’t have to look for her husband; she could just follow the strident sounds of Scottish griping.

She slipped through the crowd mostly unhindered, nodding at people who smiled at her and smiling at those who greeted her with “Mrs. Fitz-Simmons.” The response was unintentional; she couldn’t help her besotted grin any more than she could help the rush of glee that accompanied it. _Mrs. Fitz-Simmons_ : she and Fitz, now and always, partners and equals. Every time someone addressed her she remembered it afresh. And, remembering, how could she help but be glad?

“It’s Jemma Fitz-Simmons, isn’t it?”

Jemma returned to earth with difficulty, her smile fortunately remaining in place as her eyes came to rest on the young woman in front of her. “Yes,” she said brightly, “but I’m afraid I don’t have the pleasure.”

Seizing Jemma’s hand, the girl laughed merrily. “Lord, of course you don’t know me, I haven’t been in and out of the papers for a year and a half, I followed the whole trial and was so pleased about the wedding, I feel as though I already know you. I was that thrilled when Mother said you were coming.”

“You must be Daphne Osbourne,” Jemma said as quickly as possible, fully aware pauses for breath only last so long.

The girl gasped. “You _do_ know me! Have you seen my work? I haven’t shown it anywhere exciting yet, but that’s only to be expected, isn’t it, you know how bourgeois the Old Guard is.”

“Quite.” Wondering if this was how Jean felt when she and Fitz talked shop at the table, Jemma gently detached herself from Miss Osbourne’s grasp. “Actually, I’ve just come from tea with a mutual friend of ours: Sylvia Forbes?”

“Sylvia!” Daphne exclaimed so loudly several people turned to look at them. Jemma felt her face turn from uneasy to uncomfortable. Where was Fitz? She could use his steadying presence. As she glanced about for him, though, help came from another source. A striking woman with a sleek, dark bob and horn-rimmed glasses appeared from nowhere to place a settling hand on Daphne’s arm.

“Trifle softer, Daph. People are looking.”

“Oh, Iris! But this is Mrs. Fitz-Simmons, you know, from the papers, the murder—”

“Yes,” Iris said, shooting an apologetic glance Jemma greatly appreciated.

“And she knows Sylvia!” Daphne finished triumphantly, as though the coincidence was too great to be believed.

Both eyebrows raised over glasses rims, but Iris’s voice kept its flat, nearly bored tone. “I expect that makes sense, as they’re both involved in the sciences.” She shook Jemma’s hand twice, briskly, and let go. “Iris Evans, nee Osbourne. Pleased to meet you. How is our prodigal godsister?”

Prodigal was an odd word choice, Jemma thought, but as there didn’t seem to be any ill-will behind the question she felt no compunction over answering honestly. “Well. She’s doing good work at MI, and sends her regards.”

“And does she still have all that ashy hair? I’ve told her time and again a henna rinse would do her wonders.”

Both Jemma and Iris blanched a little, but Daphne merely fluffed up her own dandelion fuzz and leaned forward, lowering her voice to be nearly bearable at that close range. “And her fiancé? We were hoping—”

“ _You_ were hoping,” her sister interjected.

Daphne made a face. “—she would bring him. But then she apparently rung up last week to say she couldn’t come after all. It was terribly disappointing. We haven’t met him yet, have you, Mrs. Fitz-Simmons?”

“I have not had that pleasure.”

Daphne pouted. “Years they’ve been engaged and we’ve never even laid eyes on him. I wonder if he has a hunchback. Or if he’s even real.”

Jemma didn’t quite know how to respond to that beyond a conscious effort to appear interested rather than shocked, so she was grateful that Mrs. Evans took responsibility for carrying the conversation. “Mrs. Fitz-Simmons, I believe you’re only recently married? May I ask where you took your wedding trip?”

With the change in topic some of her uneasiness vanished, and Jemma managed an actually pleasant expression. “Italy. Venice, at first, and then Florence and Rome.”

“Ah! That was where Mr. Evans and I went as well. Did you take a picture with the pigeons in St. Mark’s Square?”

Biting back a grin at the memory of Fitz’s utter panic when faced with the swarming hoards of birds, she answered in the negative and offered their opinion of the cathedral instead. Comfortably launched on the much easier topic of honeymoons, Jemma allowed her attention to wander. It was only natural, really; speaking of one’s honeymoon reminded one of one’s wedding and thus one’s husband and, when one hadn’t seen one’s husband in nearly thirteen hours, one would of course be desirous to rectify that situation. The crowds shifted around the three women, depositing Mr. Evans—introduced, for some reason, as Budgie—but refusing to disclose Fitz. And then, just when she was beginning to plan ways to politely extricate herself so she could go find him, a very plump lady moved four steps to the side. And there he was.

Across the room, Fitz stopped breathing momentarily. He had seen her just this morning, hadn’t he, and yet he had forgotten how easily a single glimpse of her could turn him from a man to a pile of mush. Finally, he thought, and forced himself to return his attention to the conversation in front of him. How else would he know when there was a break so he could make his excuses and leave?

Cumberland-Boothby shook his head mournfully at his fellow MP’s assertion, sending his jowls swinging. “No, it’s Russia we need to worry about. Can’t trust Stalin. And even if Herr Hitler were to try something, France would hold him.”

“The danger isn’t Hitler,” the other man insisted, “it’s Mussolini. That man is mad. We may need Germany’s help to keep him contained.”

“One Fascist to another?” Cumberland-Boothby chuckled. “You aren’t wrong about Mussolini, but they can’t be our primary focus. Not when we’ve so much unrest roiling in our own borders from the Reds. Have you heard about this so-called ‘popular front’? It’s a crime it’s allowed. Sometimes I think free speech goes too far. What do you say, Mr. Fitz?”

Somewhat surprised to be called upon, Fitz stammered a little despite having a scripted answer at the ready. “Er, it’s not really my area of expertise, sir. Nations don’t work like machines.” Both MPs smiled, as people always did at that line. The third man didn’t move. “I think, though, that we ought to prepare for danger from any front. That’s the only way to ensure our safety.”

The three men regarded him soberly. Fitz felt a squirm crawl up his back but refused to obey it, instead stuffing a fist in his pocket casually. Then the third man, who had been silent up to this point, spoke. “You think there will be a war, then.”

He cursed inwardly. The question of all questions he was meant to avoid. No matter what he said, people would look at MI’s contracts with the Department of Defense and assume inside information; next thing you knew, Mr. Biggs warned, the papers would be in a frenzy and MI6 would be beating at the door, demanding to know who let what out. Fitz shrugged as nonchalantly as he could manage, trying not to let his suddenly racing heart bleed through his words. “I hope not. I just got married and have been looking forward to a long, peaceful life with my wife.”

There was a long beat in which Fitz mentally smacked himself for assuming that Tony Stark’s deflection tips would work for him. Then, to his overwhelming relief, the second man elbowed the third and smirked. “Obviously just married, eh? Or he’d know there’s no such thing as a peaceful life with a wife.”

He joined in the general merriment, only flushing slightly at old Reggie’s slightly off-color comment, and jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “Yes, and she’s just come in. So. I’d better.”

Significant winks and nudges followed his departure, but he didn’t care. Those disgusting old men could think what they liked as long as they let him go. He struck out towards the place he had last seen her, glancing on either side for the flash of green silk she was wearing and mentally ranking the items he had wished to discuss with her. First the break-through in Electrics and then the truly idiotic thing the self-appointed chairman of the board had rung up about? Or swap them? And certainly he should ask about her lecture first, but perhaps he could tell her his new idea about quantum physics before hearing about her tea?

“Was Cumby saying something to make you cross or only embarrassed?”

Fitz looked down in surprise at the old woman latched on to his elbow. Coming barely to his shoulder, she was so small he had nearly dragged her along in his single-minded pursuit. “Er,” he said, glancing back at the man he had just left and deciding Cumby was the perfect name for him, “neither. Well, both, but he didn’t mean it.”

“That’s Cumby. Been that was since he was in skirts.” Her creaky chuckle creased her face like a linen suit. “I expect he wanted to talk to you about this war he thinks is happening. Foolish man.”

“You don’t think there will be a war?” Fitz asked distractedly, so concerned with trying to remember if he should know this woman that he forgot to avoid the topic.

“Oh, no, there will be. I’ve seen enough of them in my time to know the signs. But that’s no reason to let it spoil everything, is it? In meantime there’s champagne and dancing and your wife in that green dress. I do like the backless modes, don’t you?”

Fitz could expound at length on his love for his wife’s backless gowns, but the ability to phrase it politely escaped him. He was too startled by how much this woman seemed to know without being told—maybe she was a brownie? He had never believed in them before, but she was small and ancient enough to be one, and had apparently winked into being from nowhere. “Pardon me,” he said finally, “this is horribly embarrassing, but I don’t remember meeting you. Was it at the wedding?”

The woman laughed. “You know, I don’t believe we were introduced. It was a fine spread, though. Trust Edith Simmons to do things properly. I expect you had a bit of a time winning her over?”

“Er,” he said, again unable to find the polite response. The brownie understood him anyway.

“But the end was foreordained, wasn’t it? Once Jemma decided on you there would be no changing her mind. It’s like that in her family. Comes of Sir Robert’s profession, I think. No room for going back on one’s decisions on the High Court. You must be awfully stubborn yourself to put up with it. Or brave.”

There was nothing brave about it, Fitz thought, since the sum of her virtues far outweighed that of the entire Simmons family’s flaws. Mindful of Jemma’s warning about gossip, however, he merely said, “It hasn’t been a problem so far.”

“Ah, yes! Newly wedded bliss! It’s so nice while it lasts.” She winked at him incomprehensibly, going on before he could ask for an explanation. “I’ve been watching you all night, you know. But take an old lady’s advice: if you want to speak to her at all this evening, don’t go to her now.”

Already searching the crowd for her—why was she so small? The perfect size to stroke his masculine ego was apparently the wrong size for locating at large parties—Fitz answered absently. “Why?”

“She’s tied up with Daphne and Iris, and Daphne’s like a dog with a bone.” Finally letting go of his arm, she patted the place where her hand had been. “Stay with me and I promise I’ll let you go when she comes.”

Fitz hesitated.

“Did you ever hear about the frog she kept in the bathtub?”

His attention snapped back to the woman like a rubber band relieved of tension. He did want to see Jemma, of course. But equally, he wanted more detail for one of his favorite Small Jemma stories. His wife would certainly never provide them. “You know about Leonard?” he asked, cautious.

“Know about him?” she repeated, eyes twinkling, “we became intimately acquainted when he hopped down my _décolletage_. Enjoyed it more than my second husband, too.”

“Who did?” he gasped.

As was apparently her first reaction to everything, she laughed merrily before leading him to two empty chairs by the wall. “The frog. The frog enjoyed it more than Cyril. Although, to be honest, I might have enjoyed the frog more than Cyril as well.”

With their two heads close together, the woman poured out not only Leonard’s tale, but also the history both commonplace and salacious for anyone in sight and out of earshot. Fitz lapped it up eagerly. One of the many reasons he hated these things was the continual feeling of being an outsider—inheriting pots of money couldn’t make up for years of life everyone else had in common. Anything he could to get a leg up helped. And the old woman knew _everything_. He wouldn’t be surprised to learn she actually was magic.

Then he felt the hair on the back of his neck rise and his heartbeat speed up, and he reached a hand out blindly and was not surprised when her slim gloved one slipped into it. “Oh dear, Lady Hermione. What kind of horrors are you inflicting on my poor Fitz?”

The woman—Lady Hermione, apparently—got to her feet the same time he did and kissed Jemma on both cheeks in the continental style. “If you hadn’t been so long, my dear, it wouldn’t have been necessary. He’s been chomping at the bit to get to you.”

“I know,” Jemma said, turning to him with an apology in her eyes. “I kept trying to get away, Fitz, but I couldn’t manage it. Miss Osbourne insisted I meet their brother, only she didn’t know where he was, nor did any of the dozen people we stopped to talk to in hopes of finding him. I still haven’t met him, actually. And then I ran into one of Dad’s friends, Travers, who went on at length about his French cook—”

“Larry Osbourne’s here?” Lady Hermione’s keen grey eyes sharpened to a steel edge. “Well, well. I wouldn’t have expected that. Must be a favor to Augusta.”

Fitz raised expectant eyebrows; beside him, Jemma did the same. Lady Hermione’s tone signaled at the very least an interesting morsel. Innocently holding out wrinkled hands, she matched their expression. “Why are you looking at me? Surely it’s common knowledge that Larry and his father had a serious falling-out last year?”

“We don’t know the Osbournes at all,” Jemma said.

“It’s just the money,” Fitz explained mournfully.

“But it’s a worthy cause, Fitz!”

“I’m here, aren’t I?”

“Yes, but you mustn’t—”

“I promise I won’t mention it when I meet them. We do have to meet them, I expect.”

“Oh.” Jemma blinked twice, redirecting her train of thought. “Yes, I suppose so. Can you see them anywhere?”

“I don’t know what they look like,” he said, already craning his neck obediently.

“Mr. Osbourne’s quite tall. He wears spectacles and looks rather like a hawk with silver hair.”

Lady Hermione, who had been watching them with growing delight, broke in. “He isn’t here. At least, he’s not in the room. He and Augusta slipped out ages ago.”

“Why?”

“Where?”

“Where? Somewhere away from everybody, I imagine. As to why—” Lady Hermione dropped a broad wink in Fitz’s direction. “Much the same reason you two will shortly be disappearing, I imagine. Always been somewhat of newlyweds, have the Osbournes.” Fitz didn’t have to look at Jemma to know she was flushing. The heat in his own ears was strong enough. Smug as a cat in cream, Lady Hermione sat with a flounce of her skirts and waved them away. “I’ve kept my promise, haven’t I, Mr. Fitz-Simmons? Be off with you now.”

Still blushing, he nevertheless captured Jemma’s hand between them, half-hiding it in the folds of her skirt. An electric shock jumped between their palms. “I don’t expect it’s exactly the same reason, but thank you, Lady Hermione. It’s been most informative.”

To his everlasting surprise, the old woman reached up to tweak his nose. “Don’t be so smug, my boy. You aren’t the only lucky ones.” Then she kissed Jemma again, one firm smack on the cheek. “And you _are_ lucky, my dear. I hope you know.”

She smiled and swung their clasped hands, sending Fitz a bit of starlight from the corner of her eye. “I don’t believe in luck. But yes, I know.”

Still hand-in-hand, they took turns leading each other through the assembled guests, moving as quickly as possible. Every now and again someone would stop them to offer congratulations or attempt to chat, but before too many minutes had passed they had broken through into the empty hall. Jemma turned to him with a sigh of relief. “And now we may go misbehave with perfect equanimity. I’ve even got an excuse. Daphne wanted my opinion on a vase she threw.”

“I’m sure it’s smashing,” he said.

“Ugh, Fitz! Throwing vases just means—”

“I know, Simmons. Where is this entirely whole vase supposed to be?”

She looked up at him through her lashes, devils dancing on their curly tips. “That she neglected to say. I expect we’ll just have to go questing after it.”

“A long quest?” he asked, hopeful. “I have a list of things as long as my arm.”

“Certainly a long quest.” Entirely ignoring the myriad of rooms standing open around them, she backed away towards the grand staircase. He followed easily, not letting their arms stretch more than a foot. “I was thinking about your problem with quantum physics—”

“Yes, but I want to hear about your lecture—”

“Of course, but did Electrics sort out the cycles in the—”

“Yes, it’s brilliant, but how was—”

She stopped halfway up the stairs, shaking her head and laughing. “Fitz! What are we going to do when our grace period is up and people no longer make allowances?”

“Do it anyway,” he suggested recklessly, walking backwards onto the step above her.

“No one will believe it, even if we told them we’re only talking.”

“We’ll learn Morse code, then, or have a series of keywords that mean things. For example, I’ll say ‘I so enjoy green peas’ and you’ll know I mean ‘that man is an utter idiot’.”

“Well, it certainly couldn’t mean that you like peas.” Her laugh rang out like bells and he grinned, giddy with her presence. “I suppose,” she said as they landed at the top of the stairs, “if the Osbournes can still manage to slip away without comment we ought to be able to manage it as well.”

“Or we’ll become recluses. You and me and science. And, on occasion, jazz.”

“Perfect.” She nodded decisively, then tugged at his hand a little as he headed down the corridor in search of an open door. Looking back, he was surprised to see wrinkled thoughtfulness across her forehead. “Fitz, why would Lady Hermione say we were the lucky ones?”

“Because we are,” he said, “or we would be if there was such a thing as luck. What’s making you so pensive?”

“Sylvia,” she said, rather enigmatically he thought, and sighed before offering a tentative smile. “Later, Fitz. This isn’t the time, but I promise.”

“Good enough for me.” But a shadow still remained, so he bent over and rubbed his slightly scratchy cheek against her smooth one. Her smile budded into bloom. “I like this frock. The jazz club in Rome, yeah?”

“Yeah,” she repeated, running the tips of her fingers along his jawline. “You remembered.”

“ Course I did.” Resuming their search, he changed topics as yet another door disappointed him. “How many husbands has Lady Hermione had? I thought she mentioned three, but—”

“It was four, actually. Poor thing, she hasn’t had much luck. They keep dying on her. Fortunately, she seems to find them to be easily replaceable.”

“I can’t imagine that.”

“Nor can I,” she admitted.

“Certainly not!” he said, moving to the other side of the hall and trying the last door. The knob turned easily under his hand. “After me, all other men pale in comparison.”

“That’s true.”

His hand dropped off the knob and he turned to her, already struck to the bone by the fervent certainty contained in her response. He had only been joking, but she was not. Not a hint of levity masked the love pouring from her level gaze, enough love to steal a man’s breath and stop a man’s heart, too much love to allow him to do anything other than draw her chin up and kiss her as carefully as glass. The door swung open behind them unheeded. An entire brass band could have paraded out of the room and Fitz wouldn’t have noticed, too busy ensuring she knew all other women paled in comparison to her.

Falling back on her heels, she took an unsteady breath, her hands trembling against his chest. “Finally! An open one.”

He didn’t bother to look, perfectly content with her. “It’s not a bedroom, is it? I didn’t mean for us to open ourselves up to _quite_ that much talk.”

“I don’t think so.” Getting back on tiptoe, she rested her forearms on his chest to try to peer over his shoulder. “It looks like a study. There are bookshelves and—”

With her pressed against him, he knew the instant she stilled. “What?” he asked. “Is it a complete set of Dickens in the first edition? An antique Chinese chess set? One of those globes as big as a small dog you covet every time we go into Harrods?” The last, at least, he had already ordered for her birthday. But she didn’t respond. From this angle, he could only see one eye and part of her cheek—not enough to draw any conclusions. “Jemma?” he asked again, trying to turn over his shoulder.

She stopped him, putting a hand firmly on each of his cheeks and directing his eyes to meet hers. “Sweetheart, look at me. Don’t look at anything else.”

“Why would I want to?” he asked lightly. She didn’t even acknowledge it, her eyes returning to whatever was behind them with a growing—was that _fear_ in her eyes? Palms suddenly damp, he caught her hands and brought them together at his chest. “Simmons. What is it?”

“Oh, Fitz,” she said, empty of anything but horror. “It’s Mr. and Mrs. Osbourne. They’ve been killed.”


	3. Blood, Bath

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As you may guess from the title, this chapter requires warnings for blood (at the beginning) and non-sexual nudity (at the end).

All the color drained from his face as quickly as water down the sink, and his grip on her hands went from comforting to terrified. “Killed,” he repeated, “no, Jemma, no, they’re just—”

Two crumpled forms rested on the Persian carpet and the blood, the blood was everywhere—she had never imagined arterial spatter that bad—“No, Fitz. They aren’t.”

“Oh God,” he said, dropping his forehead to rest on her shoulder, “not again.”

Burying her hands in his hair, Jemma closed her eyes and echoed the sentiment silently. They had only just found some measure of peace after the last one; a year later and it was still a rare week one or the other of them didn’t wake gasping for air. At least this time Fitz hadn’t seen it. At least this time they could close the door and let the police deal with it, and only she would have to contend with red-tinged nightmares. She forced herself to let go of him with one hand and reach shakily for the knob, wishing with all her heart that the thick oak could make the whole thing truly vanish, rather than only disappear for a bit.

Then she noticed the far body—Mrs. Osbourne’s body—convulsing, shaking, and she flew with a shout across the gore-spattered rug to the woman’s side before she even thought. “Fitz!”

He had already turned to follow her but stalled in the doorway, swaying slightly. _Don’t swoon_ , she thought hard at him, _don’t swoon_. “Come help me—no, stay there!” Reaching across Mrs. Osbourne’s unconscious form with both hands, she heaved the woman onto her side. “She’s vomiting, I can’t let her choke, but I only rolled her over—remember that, for the police.”

He nodded dazedly, clutching the doorframe. “The police. We have to get the police. And a doctor.”

“The butler,” she directed as she scooped sick from Mrs. Osbourne’s unprotesting mouth, “he’ll know. And the family, oh, Lord, Fitz, you’ll have to tell them—find Mrs. Evans—”

“What does she look like?” he asked, entirely reasonably and yet not simply enough for her to answer well, not when she was rapidly remembering every first aid course she had ever taken and shoveling vomit into her lap and trying not to look at the bashed-in head of Stafford Osbourne.

“Capable!” she shouted.

“Not helpful, Simmons!” he shouted back, then “Sorry, sorry!”

But the harshness was good as a slap, and their partner name brought her to her senses like nothing else could. Taking a deep breath, she stripped off one glove and brushed her hair out of her eyes with her wrist. Clarity returned, bringing with it their course of action.

“Find Lady Hermione. Have her tell the family. Tell the butler there’s been an emergency and we need the police and the doctor. But before you go, bring me some blotting paper and that water carafe from the desk.”

He moved as if in a fog, but she blessed his sure hands as he retrieved the items and brought them to her without fumbling. The blotting paper he dropped into her lap before crouching to put the heavy crystal carafe on the floor by her knees, carefully avoiding the pool of blood spreading like an oil slick. His hand on her shoulder trembled. “The butler. Lady Hermione. Then what?”

She brought her bare hand up to grip his wrist, abandoning Mrs. Osbourne’s thready pulse to take her husband’s strong, racing one. _Alive, alive_ , it beat out, and she kissed it, not realizing the wetness she felt was her own tears until she tasted them. “And then come back as quick as you can, Fitz. I can’t do this again without you.”

“You won’t,” he said, and shifted forward to press a kiss to her head before standing. His thumb brushed her shoulder gently. “As quick as I can,” he promised, ran a hand over her hair, and obeyed.

With difficulty, she returned her attention to the woman before her. The vomiting had ceased for the moment, thank goodness, so she only had to deal with the blood trickling down Mrs. Osbourne’s face. Blotting paper wasn’t the best method for sopping it up, but her options were limited; silk was even worse, and her glove was already contaminated. Dashing some water against the blotter, she dabbed at the worst of it, looking for the source. Her first panicked diagnosis of a slit throat was obviously incorrect. Judging by the concave hollow at Stafford Osbourne’s temple, they had been hit with something, and hit hard. Which, of course, explained the unconsciousness and vomiting. After prying open Mrs. Osbourne’s eyelids to determine the dilation of her pupils and retrieving a cushion from the sofa to gingerly keep her neck straight, Jemma resumed her count of the weak but steady pulse. Concentrating on two sets of numbers at once kept her from thinking about much of anything else. She couldn’t, not yet. Not without Fitz.

She didn’t know how many heartbeats she counted before he reappeared in the doorway, huffing as though he had taken the stairs at a run. “They’re on their way, and I told Lady Hermione not to let the family up. They don’t—no one ought—”

The corpse between them drew his gaze like a magnet, his horror as plain as his inability to look away. “Fitz,” she said quickly, hoping to draw his attention, and he moved his head but not his eyes.

“Gassing doesn’t seem so awful now, does it?”

She thought of his uncle, as peaceful as if he was sleeping. “No.”

“But it would have been quick, wouldn’t it? He wouldn’t—”

“Yes.”

He nodded, took a deep breath, and finally met her eyes. “What do you need me to do?”

“Watch with me. The police will want to know—”

“We opened the door. You saw the bodies. We weren’t going to move, but—”

“Where did I step?”

Cocking his head, he came slowly into the room, staring at the carpet. Most of the furniture was towards the sides of the room, luckily, so he had a clear view of her footprints in the deep pile of the rug. “Here.” Just inside the door. “Here.” Near the corner of the desk. “Here.” Between Mr. Osbourne’s spread-eagle legs. “And—hullo, there’s the weapon.”

“Don’t touch it!” she shrieked unnecessarily, and he shot her an irritated glare.

“Of course I’m not going to touch it, Simmons. You only make that mistake once. Think _you_ might’ve, though, in your bat flight. It’s nearly rolled under the sofa.”

“What is it?”

“See for yourself.”

Sitting up on her heels, she peered where he indicated. The shadows cast by the couch made it difficult to see, but after a second she followed the long metal shaft of a fireplace poker back to where it came to a wicked, bloodstained point. Just to verify her identification, she glanced over her right shoulder to where the fireplace was set into the outside wall. Fitz followed her gaze and nodded.

“Yeah. So the thief probably came in, opened the safe—”

“The safe?” she echoed, locating it in the same moment. Halfway up the bookcase lining the back of the room, a shelf of leather-bound false fronts swung open to disclose a decently sized safe within. Empty, now, as was only to be expected. “Ah, Fitz, that explains the bruises.”

“What bruises?”

“Look.”

He started to move towards her but stopped, looking down at the body behind him. “It isn’t right for people to die this way.” Then, stripping off his jacket, he draped it gently over the dead man’s face. “They saw me in my jacket downstairs,” he said, already defensive. “The police can’t think—”

“Your shirt would have blood on it too. They won’t.” She understood more than he said. Once, she might have though he couldn’t bear to look at the battered corpse; now she could see the innate respect for the man whose soul it had once contained. Holding out her ungloved hand, she waited for him to finish the journey and take it. When he crouched beside her, she used the pinky of her other hand to point out the already-purpling splotches ringing Mrs. Osbourne’s throat. “I couldn’t imagine what caused these—she was coshed, not strangled, and it’s too small for hands, anyway—but you see how round the marks are? It must have been a necklace.”

He nodded. “How long, do you think?”

“Well, obviously within the half-hour, or forty-five minutes, rather. That’s how long Lady Hermione said—”

“But for the bruising to be that bad?”

“I’m not actually a doctor, you know.” But she canted her head and considered. “I don’t know, Fitz. Perhaps ten, fifteen minutes.” The marks seemed to be deeper on one side, though she couldn’t quite see for the pillow; if she had to guess, the thief had pulled the necklace as he had made his escape through the window. At the front of the throat, they were no more serious than a love mark.

“Ten or fifteen minutes?” he repeated, shoulders relaxing. “Before we were here, then.”

She sucked in a breath, suddenly sick. For all her determination to keep from thinking about what could have been, she hadn’t actually considered how easily the hypothetical could have been actual. A few minutes less with Miss Osbourne and Mrs. Evans and it might have been her and Fitz on the floor. Head swimming, she gripped his hand more tightly. He squeezed back just as hard.

“But we were with Lady Hermione then. We were all right. We _are_ all right.”

“Yes,” she said. “At least, I am. Are you?”

“If you’re all right, I am,” he said, even as she watched his slow appraisal of the room turn his pallor from white to green: the pooled blood soaking into the carpet; the sprays and spatters across the sofa; the stains marking the heavy drapes on either side of the open window. Then he stared fixedly at their hands. “Will she be all right?”

Better not to focus on the blood, she heartily agreed, and shrugged one shoulder with a sigh. “I don’t know, Fitz. She may wake up as good as new; she may never wake up at all. And nearly every point on the spectrum between. Her pulse is strong and her pupils are active so I don’t _think_ she’ll die, but—”

“What’s the best to hope for?”

She watched Mrs. Osbourne’s chest rise and fall for a moment before glancing across it to the still, dark form beyond. “That she forgets everything that happened here, and her last memory of her husband is a good one.”

“It’s better to wake in a world where your husband is just dead?”

“Oh no.” She laughed hollowly, pillowing her head on his shoulder. “It’s better not to wake in that world at all. But it isn’t right to hope somebody will die, even if they might wish to.”

He pressed a kiss to her hairline and was silent. They stayed like that until the police came.

Scotland Yard went about their business very differently to Inspector Ross and his subordinates. In what felt like no time at all, they had removed Mrs. Osbourne to the hospital, taken a thousand photographs of the room, separated the party downstairs into “people who might be helpful” and “people who have had too much champagne”, and questioned him and Jemma twice each. Fitz found their dispatch and efficiency refreshing. Though he had taken advantage of the opportunity to phone his mother and tell her what happened, he hoped that he would be able to get Jemma out of here at a somewhat decent hour.

But, just when he began to expect permission to leave, the whole thing stalled. A polite if firm policeman brought them coffee and asked them to remain a few minutes longer, then left and didn’t come back. Nor did anyone else. The coffee grew cold and the space grew silent. Jemma’s stiff spine became a rod of iron. The evening turned to night, then the very early morning. They didn’t speak at all, even silently. Fitz, watching his wife’s stiff correctness and tight clasp of her hands, grew increasingly concerned. She had been a wonder: resolute, clear, and steady, acting as though the account of the discovery was lines she had learned and the garish streaks of blood and vomit covering her gown were nothing more than stage make-up. He was proud of her, of course. Goodness knew it was all he could do to keep down the bile every time he remembered Stafford Osbourne’s caved-in head. Still, he couldn’t help but worry.

When the hands on his watch passed one a.m., he heaved himself to his feet and shoved his hands in his pockets. “I’m going to find the Chief-Inspector and see how much longer he’ll need us.”

She nodded once, offering the smile that meant she heard, but wasn’t really listening. Not for the first time, he regretted he didn’t actually know how to read her mind.

Wandering through the hall and the events of the last few hours, Fitz felt exhaustion settle deep in his bones. The long hours of waiting had allowed the panic to subside, leaving in its place confusion and dismay—which, Fitz found, were more wearying. Adrenaline’s affects on the body would wear off in time, but his mind would never stop. Tonight, at the very same time he was flirting madly with his wife, another man had been killed in front of his over the contents of a safe and a strand of compressed carbons. _Why_ , he demanded of the universe at large, did such things happen? How did one even begin to come to terms with it? This was his second—no, third murder and he couldn’t begin to fathom it. If he saw a hundred more he rather thought it would be as much a mystery as the first one.

The police had made the dining room into their headquarters, causing Fitz to wonder tiredly if it was in the handbook as he waited for someone to answer his knock. Wouldn’t it be better to interrogate people from the comforts of a plush chair? Lure people into a sense of security, too. . . Shaking himself back to attention when the door opened, he made a manful effort to ask his question without reproaching the innocent lieutenant who answered. “Sorry to bother you. I was just wondering how much longer you think it will be?”

The lieutenant looked over his shoulder. “Sir, Mr. Fitz-Simmons.”

“They’re still here?” There was a great deal of rustling, then the Chief-Inspector appeared in the doorway, his face all over apology. “I’m sorry, Mr. Fitz-Simmons. I hadn’t realized you hadn’t gone.”

“Please don’t think anything of it,” he said, slightly curious where his good manners were coming from, “only, it’s quite late, and Mrs. Fitz-Simmons—”

“Of course. You could have gone hours ago. We have your address on file, I believe?” The lieutenant nodded in unison with Fitz, and the Chief-Inspector continued kindly. “Take your wife home. We’ll be in contact should we need anything more.”

“The summons?”

“Tomorrow. You’ve done enough tonight. Simpson, call a taxi for Mr. Fitz-Simmons.”

He hadn’t done anything, really—everything important had been done by Jemma—but he was happy to let Simpson sort out the cab while he went in search of Jemma’s wrap. His own jacket was, as far as he knew, still upstairs, and she would need something to keep off the one o’clock chill. Rummaging through the coat room proved to be a bit of a process, many people having apparently abandoned their wraps when they were given permission to leave, but he eventually located both her cloak and the small beaded bag he bought her in Florence. Coming out of the annex, he ran bodily into Simpson coming from the front hall to inform him the taxi had arrived. “Shall I fetch Mrs. Fitz-Simmons for you, sir?”

“No. No, I’ll get her.” He had been away longer than intended and found himself missing her with a dull ache, like when he hadn’t eaten all day. He shouldn’t have left her alone. It wasn’t good, he thought, to be alone at times like this.

She stood when he entered the room, smiling at her wrap trailing over his arm. “Can we go, then?”

“Yes.” He held it up and folded her into it, stooping to kiss the nape of her neck. A faintly bitter taste of perfume masked the warm iron scent of blood that still clung to her.

A shiver swept over her, and she gripped his sleeve blindly. “Let’s don’t go into the office tomorrow. We can shirk our responsibilities in extraordinary circumstances, can’t we?”

“Of course,” he said. “We have to stay at home for the summons, anyway.”

Turning slightly in his arms, she looked up at him with deep and anxious eyes. “Only I’m so tired, Fitz.”

“That’s what happens when you get up at the crack of dawn.” He smiled against her hair, then gently placed his hand at the small of her back to propel her out of the room. “C’mon. Let’s go home.”

She moved her hand to clasp his and didn’t let go: not in the hall to shake the Chief-Inspector’s hand; not in the dark backseat of the cab; not on their doorstep, choosing instead to fish in his pocket for the latchkey herself. She didn’t drop it until they landed in their hall and his mother came rushing out of the library to take their things and assure herself they were still alive.

“Poor lambs,” Jean said, her gnarled hands running gently over Jemma’s face, “such an ordeal. You’re both frozen. There’s warm milk with cinnamon, warm you up and put you straight to sleep.”

“Thanks, Mam,” he managed, and, swaying a little on her feet, Jemma echoed him.

“But I think I’m going to go straight to bed,” she added. “I’m sure I’ll have no problems going to sleep without warm milk.”

Jean eyed her warily, the worried wrinkles he could feel creasing his own forehead mirrored in hers. “Are you sure, deary? You didn’t have any dinner.”

“I’m sure.” Forcing a smile, Jemma touched Jean’s arm with the tips of her fingers. “Feed Fitz though, poor darling, or he might starve in his sleep.” Then, tossing a silent _I love you_ his direction, she trailed slowly up the stairs.

He and Jean watched her until the door to her bedroom shut firmly behind her. Jean moved to stand by him, the sleeve of her dressing gown brushing against his wrist. “Are you all right, son?”

“Thank you, Mam. Right enough.” Coming to a decision, he patted her shoulder and hurried after his wife. In truth, he was not and could not be all right while Jemma was drifting like a rudderless ship in a fog, her natural light dimmed almost to the point of extinguishment. Her peace was more than his own to him. “Jemma?” he whispered, not bothering to knock, “May I come in?”

There was no response save the tumbling of the lock, but he recognized it for what it was and pushed in, kicking the door shut behind him. Before he could blink she was in his arms, twisting her fingers into his shirt and shuddering with the force of her sobs. “Shh,” he soothed, tightening his grasp. “Shh, Jemma, I’ve got you.”

She clung harder, weeping silently, and he notched his chin on her shoulder and waited, listening carefully to the mangled fragments of words that escaped the space between their chests: his name several times, something about her dress, and—curiously—Lady Hermione. He didn’t even try to make sense of it. She could tell him when she stopped, if she wanted, or he could never know and that would be fine, too. As long as he could serve as her harbor, he was content.

Eventually, her tears slowed, then sputtered, turning to hiccoughs and sighs. “I’m sorry,” she said, pulling away.

He took her splotchy, swollen face in his hands and swiped the lingering drops away with his thumbs. “For what? You’re entitled to a good cry after what you’ve been through.”

Laughing shakily, she turned her face into his palm. “But you were there, too—all that blood—however did you manage it?”

“I wasn’t thinking about it,” he said, mostly truthfully, “and please don’t make me start.”

Her face grew somber. “I can’t _stop_ thinking about it, Fitz. I feel it on my hands and under my fingernails; I smell it when I move. I’ve never smelled death that strongly before, even in the morgue.”

He knew exactly what she meant. Reading about the “smell of violence” in books, he had always connected it vaguely with gunpowder, but in reality it didn’t smell _like_ anything. It was a dull, brown, heavy weight hanging in the air, more akin to the feel of mustard gas than anything else, and biting as a Glasgow wind. It rested in the cuffs of his trousers and the folds of her dress, and he wondered if they would ever be rid of it. Drawing her close again, he took a deep whiff of her hair and let it go slowly, lavender peace expelling the dingy clouds. “Maybe you could have a bath?” he suggested.

“I don’t want to be without you,” she said.

“You won’t be,” he promised, “I’ll come sit in there with you. In the room, I mean. The bath isn’t big enough.”

She laughed—only a little, but enough to lift a stone from his chest—and clasped his wrist, drawing away. “Come on, then. You can be my ladies’ maid, and I’ll pay you better than Eliza.”

While she scrubbed her hands carefully and undressed, he dumped a liberal amount of bath salts into an exceedingly hot bath, heedless of the racket the pipes made.

“Don’t boil me.”

“You’re so cold, though.” But he obediently added a bit of cold water, swishing it around with one hand before holding out the other to help her step in. Then, wrestling off his stiff shirt front and dropping it on the pile of her gown and underthings, he sank to the cork bathmat and rested his the back of his head against the lip of the tub. “All right?” he asked, closing his eyes.

“Exactly right.” Her hand in his hair left a drip to trickle down his temple. “Thank you, Fitz. Do you mind talking?”

“No. What about?”

“Anything. Well, anything but—”

“Right,” he said, toeing off his shoes in a way destined to give Lane fits. “Collins phoned today.”

“And what did that pompous fool want?”

“Oh, you know. What he always does.” He told her anyway, letting the ordinary business of their life fill the room along with the comforting scent of lavender and the soft haze of steam. It meandered easily: he heard about her lecture, explained Electrics’s new course of action, languidly discussed quantum physics. Like any other night, he thought, lolling into the slow circles her fingers were making in his hair. Just for right now, nothing dreadful had happened. Just for right now, they were as they had been this morning.

“Mm,” he said, rolling his head to look at her. “You didn’t tell me about Miss Forbes yet. How was your tea?”

He had expected lighted pleasure to fill her face. Instead, her eyelids dropped like shutters, the corners wincing together. “Not Sylvia, Fitz. Not tonight. It’s too close.”

“To what?” he asked, but she was already shaking her head.

“She started me thinking about how fortunate we are, to be together. She and her fiancé have wanted to be married for years, and aren’t…and then the—the Osbournes—”

There it was again, shattering their fragile peace, snaking along the ground and into the pit of his stomach. He swallowed and turned away, setting his mouth in a line.

“Oh, no, Fitz, I’m sorry.” A soft plash of water behind him, then her lips against his ear. “I didn’t mean—I don’t want to talk about it, truly.”

“No, it’s—” He fought to get the words out around the swelling in his throat. “Only, we can’t actually forget about it, can we? There’ll be the inquest, and more questionings, and the trial—it’s begun all over again.”

“No, it hasn’t.”

He craned his neck around to look at her skeptically. Bringing her knees to her chest, she laid her chin atop them and gently stroked his cheek. “I promise, sweetheart. It won’t be like last time. The police will do all the work; we’ll have to be there for the inquest, of course, but they might not require our evidence at the trial, even assuming they find the killer. It’s not our job this time. Everything will go back to normal in no time, you’ll see.”

“Really?” he asked, ashamed of his disbelief when met with the steadfast fealty in her eyes.

She smiled reassuringly. “Really.”

Turning his head, he caught her fingertips with the corner of his mouth, kissing them gently before sitting up to sputter indignantly. “Who is this wrinkled hag that smells like my wife?”

She laughed, stretching her hand out in front of her to observe. “Fascinating phenomenon, isn’t it? The water’s nearly cold, anyway. Will you—”

He was already on his feet, moving to retrieve her dressing gown from where it was draped over the warmer. She snuggled into it gratefully, the damp hairs at her temples and nape sending trails down her neck as she craned to look up at him. In her bare feet, she barely came to his nose. “Oh, Fitz, why don’t you always keep me company during my baths? The experience is so much more enjoyable that way.”

“Well, I’d rather not get up that early. And it wouldn’t be”—he couldn’t quite stop himself from letting his eyes rove over her— “conducive to productivity.”

Dropping her eyelashes demurely, she pushed her lips into a maidenly pout. “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.”

“Yes you do.”

“Yes,” she said, “I do.” Then she seized his collar points and pushed up onto her toes, pressing herself against his front for balance while she kissed him thoroughly, tasting of salt and a lingering trace of champagne and of home. A hint of desperation colored the eager movements of her mouth and tongue, and her hands moved from his collar to clench at his sides tightly enough to leave a mark. Fitz held her just as hard and sunk into it without noticing how damp he was becoming, wholly concentrated on the only perfectly good thing in the world.

Far away, the hall clock struck the time: quarter past two. He pulled away, gasping. “Jemma, it’s—are you—”

Staring fixedly at the knobs of his collarbones, she nodded. “This morning I said I wasn’t used to you, and that’s true. But I think, sometimes—” She shook her head, fingers pleating his shirt together. “We’re together, Fitz, and alive, and we love each other. Let’s not take that for granted.”

Sylvia, he thought, and the Osbournes. Chucking her under the chin, he waited until she met his eyes. “Never,” he said, smiling, and took her hand and drew her to their bed.

When the clock struck three, she was nestled beside him peacefully, her warm breaths coming achingly slow against his neck, her cold hands covered by his warm ones. Sneaking one out, she traced the tear track down his cheek drowsily. “Why did you cry?”

“I wasn’t the only one,” he said, indignant.

“Why did we cry, then?”

He pushed a strand of still wet hair behind her ear. “Because we’re together, and alive, and we love each other, and some people aren’t so lucky.”

“Mm.” Her eyelids drooped, closed. “More than the mass of the sun, Fitz.”

Tucking her into him more firmly, he nodded even though she couldn’t see it. Even though, judging from the looseness to her muscles, she was already asleep. “Always,” he whispered, and drifted off as well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyl1ttleth1ng for reading the bath bit and making sure it wasn't too scandalous!
> 
> At this point, I'm not planning on a chapter on Friday—I may get a lot done and surprise myself, but we shall have to see.


	4. Damsels Distressed

Jemma’s prediction came true. After the inquest—quickly adjourned per the police’s request—their information was no longer required and they were free to go about their lives as usual. Term ended, so Jemma worked at her Macpherson lab every day. Fitz ground his teeth to powder in his myriad meetings and escaped to the lab whenever he could. They had tea in his office four times a week and declined as many invitations as possible; they went to the theatre and to lectures and to Lola, where Jemma tried very hard to appreciate jazz. And all the time, they avoided thinking about what had happened at the Osbournes’ party. At first, the second shoe loomed large over their heads waiting to drop, but as July became August and almost September without any progress, they began to breathe more easily. Even the papers stopped screaming for justice. Fitz, shaking the newspaper with a furrowed brow, maintained there was more to worry about than one murder. Jemma usually agreed absently. No one with half a brain could be entirely comfortable with the situation in Czechoslovakia, but when her research had taken so many leaps forward she found it difficult to expend energy much of anywhere else.

Having had great success with her antidote experiments, Jemma began work practicalizing what was, at present, merely an amusing project. Without a safe delivery mechanism, a countermeasure could be just as deadly as the toxin; her work was useless if unable to be utilized. Fitz quite agreed. In whatever time he could spare he drew up increasingly elaborate devices made of materials they had yet to invent—drew up only, because the time he could spare was scarce. Tony Stark might be able to swan about with movie stars and Nobel laureates but he, still proving himself to his board of directors and discreetly overseeing the largest cooperative defense build-up the world had never known, could rarely find the time to eat in the middle of the day. Without the teas in his office he would probably starve.

“You would not,” Jemma said, rolling her eyes as she popped her last bit of tea-soaked biscuit into her mouth. Perched on the edge of his desk, she reached back to snag another from the tea tray sitting on hers.

He leaned back in his chair, wounded. “You don’t know, Simmons. Yes, perhaps not _technically_ , but there are some days I’m sure my stomach will eat a hole in itself.”

“It can, but not because you miss lunch.” Her eyes grew bright over the rim of her teacup. “The acidity of the stomach versus the strength of the stomach lining is _such_ an interesting chemical balance, actually, made all the more fascinating by the way one’s emotional stability can unsettle it, much like strokes are physiological but can be triggered by a sudden shock.”

“Jemma, we have discussed in the past, at length, how much I wish you would not lecture about digestion while I am in the process of eating.”

“You’re no fun,” she pouted, but only for a second. Leaning back on one hand, she rifled through the mess of papers layering the desktop until she found the one she wanted. “You’re certain you can’t tell me how to make this myself? Only term starts next week and I’ll have to shove it in odd moments.”

He glanced at the schematic—an air-pressured injector to push antitoxin quickly into the bloodstream—and sighed heavily. “I could. But then I’d lose the fun of doing it. Don’t do that to me, please. I have so little fun here.”

“Poor darling. No food, no fun—how is life worth living?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” he said, perfectly aware that the near-liquid expression on his face entirely undercut his pretended nonchalance, “there are other things to life.”

A knock at the office door stopped her just short of his lips, resulting in an eyeroll and a “bother” before she pecked him lightly and retreated to her desk, situated kitty-corner to his with her back to the wall of windows. Not that his secretary hadn’t already accidentally seen more than he wished to, but one did try to keep up appearances. “Come in!” he called once she was settled, standing to put the papers in some semblance of order.

Andrews, eyes firmly on the floor, entered hesitantly. “There are some ladies here to see you, sir.”

“Ladies?” He and Jemma exchanged a confused glance. “Did I forget an appointment?”

The secretary shook his head. “No, sir, they haven’t got an appointment.”

“Can’t you tell them I’m at tea with my wife?”

“Of course, sir,” Andrews said reproachfully, “I did try that, but they said they wished to see both you and Mrs. Fitz-Simmons.”

_What the blazes?_ He asked her, and she shrugged with her eyebrows. “Who is it, Andrews?”

“A Mrs. Evans and a Miss Osbourne, ma’am.”

“Good lord,” Jemma said, her face suddenly white. “Show them in, Andrews, of course.”

“And more tea,” Fitz added. Andrews made the fifteen-degree inclination of his head that signified understanding and backed out. A thousand questions buzzed silently between them:

_Why?_

_Now?_

_What can we—_

_Will you be all right?_

The instant she heard the door open, Jemma arranged her features into what he could tell was her best imitation of her mother’s welcoming expression and came around the desk, one hand outstretched to the two women now entering. “Mrs. Evans, Miss Osbourne, how good to see you. I don’t believe you’ve met my husband?”

There had been no time at the inquest and it hadn’t seemed proper at the funeral. He stood as well, shaking each’s hand as Jemma introduced them: Iris Evans, her handshake as no-nonsense as her sensible suit, and Daphne Osbourne, whose quick flit of the fingers set her bracelets jingling. Gesturing to the two armchairs he had for visitors, he promised the forthcoming tea and leaned back against the edge of his desk. He was now officially out of his depth. Any further overtures would have to come from Jemma.

She dropped into his desk chair and smiled warmly, at once sympathetic and bracing. Only he could see the alarm hiding in the very depths of her even gaze. “We were so glad to hear that your mother made a full recovery. Is she doing well?”

“No,” Daphne said, at the same time Iris responded “As well as can be expected.” Casting a brief command at her sister, Mrs. Evans continued. “She has rotten headaches, which we were told to expect. And of course it’s been difficult, but she’s been very brave.”

“Of course,” they murmured in unison.

“We did want to thank you for your actions that night. I apologize that we’ve left it so long.”

“Please don’t worry about it.”

“You’ve been otherwise occupied, with the investigation and all.”

Daphne sat up abruptly, eyes aflame, and he didn’t need Jemma’s nearly silent sigh to let him know he had said entirely the wrong thing. “That’s just it,” the girl said, “we have _not_ been occupied with the investigation, because it’s been six weeks and the rotten police haven’t gotten a solitary step closer to finding our father’s killer.”

“You don’t know that,” Iris objected sharply.

“The Chief-Inspector all but said so! You heard him!”

“He said it was difficult to be confident of success the further removed from the event we went.”

“It’s the same thing!”

“Oh, no, Miss Osbourne.” Jemma leaned across the desk earnestly. “That’s only hedging. They can’t really tell you how the investigation is proceeding.”

“Why not?” Daphne demanded hotly. “Surely his own children have a right to know?”

Fitz kicked at a spot on the carpet, steadfastly refusing to give in to the impulse to look at Jemma. There were any number of reasons why the police might not be exactly frank: They could be in the middle of a delicate lead, or too busy with other cases to take the time, or they could be nowhere at all. Or—he thought, then instantly pushed away—or, they could be withholding information from a suspect. Really, there was no way to know. Behind him, Jemma stammered out, “Well—that is—”

Fortunately for them both, Daphne didn’t seem to expect an answer. “It’s as though they expect us to forget, to go on as though dad died in bed, but that isn’t fair to him, is it?”

“He doesn’t care.” Iris reached into her handbag and pulled out a cigarette case, pausing after she flicked it open with her thumb. “Is it all right if I smoke?”

He waved a permissive hand. Jemma, who found smoking a dirty habit, cleared her throat. “I’m sure they don’t mean anything of the sort, Miss Osbourne. Scotland Yard has a remarkably good success rate, you know.”

“Do they,” Daphne asked, darkly, “or do you just not hear about their failures?”

At this interesting moment, the tea cart trundled in, bringing with it a scent of citrus and the return of sanity. Fitz rather hoped the thread of conversation would become irrevocably lost in the business of pouring and serving. Murder was not pleasant tea chat. Picking up his thought as if by static electricity, Jemma launched out afresh. “I’m sorry we can’t offer you a better tea. I promise we don’t usually ply our guests with plain biscuits, but they’re Fitz’s favorite.”

He frowned thoughtfully, shifting a bit to look at her. “Perhaps we could go out? There’s a decent place down the street, nice and quiet—”

Daphne broke in, shaking her head firmly. “Here is better. We wouldn’t want anyone to overhear why we’ve come.”

Fitz took a long draft of tea in an attempt to quell the apprehension rising in his gullet. “And, er, why have you come, exactly?”

For the first time since her entrance, Fitz saw all the histrionics drop away from Daphne’s face. Without indignation or anger, she was only a little girl, eyes ringed and creased with grief. “We’ve come to ask you to help us find who killed our father.”

Fitz froze with his biscuit halfway into his tea, letting it disintegrate soggily and come to rest at the bottom of the cup. Jemma’s uncomfortable laugh sounded incredulously. “Miss Osbourne, we’re hardly qualified—”

“But you are!” she insisted, moving to the edge of her seat. “You solved the Verinder Hall murders all by yourselves, didn’t you? Anyone could see that inspector didn’t know what he was about.”

“Well, but we had a head start,” he began, and Jemma protested, “That was a special circumstance—”

“And here, this is literally in your lap!” Putting her teacup on the corner of his desk, Daphne clasped her hands together pleadingly. “The police have been useless—they’re too narrow-minded to consider outside possibilities—”

Iris’s mouth pulled into a straight line. “Not this again, Daphne. You do realize you should like one of those paranoid crackpots at Marble Arch. It’s far more likely to be a robbery, and the police know it.”

“Oh, really? Have you ever tried to climb the ivy, Iris?”

Fitz tried to break in, but Iris, cool and confident, ran right over him. “ _And_ you’re accusing our guests of murderous intent—that group of people, come together for charity?” She scoffed. “Do be reasonable.”

“There’s nothing reasonable about murder.” Tears pooled in Daphne’s eyes, one escaping angrily down her cheek.

Fitz dug in his pocket for his handkerchief and handed it over. “Of course there isn’t.”

Coming to stand beside him, Jemma bent at the waist to lay a comforting hand on Daphne’s shoulder. “But they do usually have a logic to them, which the police understand and we don’t. Really, it’s much better to leave it to them.”

Iris pulled out a fresh cigarette and spoke as she lit it, her words elbowing around it hazily. “Thank you, Mrs. Fitz-Simmons. That’s exactly what I’ve been telling her.”

Daphne glared at her sister over Fitz’s handkerchief—no mean feat considering how furiously she was blowing her nose. Crossing his arms uncomfortably, he asked a question more for distraction than anything else. “What does your mother think of it?”

“She doesn’t care a bit!” Daphne burst out, dashing away burning tears with the back of her hand. “She wouldn’t care if the police stopped right now.”

“She feels the whole thing is somewhat meaningless,” Iris said. “Catching the killer won’t bring our father back, and she doesn’t find the emeralds or the stock certificates worth fussing over.”

Murmuring understandingly, Jemma asked,” And your brother?”

“Agrees with mother, as always. He’s always been her pet; he won’t go against her wishes now.”

Daphne interrupted, her tone as tart as a lemon and her face screwed up to match. “And so there’s no one but me to care about dad. And we might never know.”

“Are you simply here for moral support, then, Mrs. Evans?” he asked, not able to look away from Daphne snuffling and limp behind his handkerchief.

“I want justice for my father as much as anyone,” she said, surprising him, “but please take no offense, I don’t see what you can do that the police haven’t. They have resources and expertise you do not. One wouldn’t ask them to do _your_ work.”

“Certainly not,” Jemma said firmly, and he had to stifle a chuckle. She was still frustrated by the bungling forensic methods of the H——shire police. “I am sorry, Miss Osbourne, but we really can’t—”

“Answer. Yet. Without talking about it.”

All three women stared at him in various states of gape-mouthed astonishment: Daphne’s ecstatic, Iris’s bemused, and Jemma’s—was he interpreting this correctly?—angry. Looking directly at the only person who mattered, he tugged at his earlobe and stammered a further explanation. “Because we’re busy. And we aren’t detectives. But, um, I know we’d like to help if we can. So maybe we could let you know our decision by the weekend?”

From the corner of his eye, he caught Daphne nodding so fervently she almost threw herself off the chair. “Whenever you like. Any time. Let me give you our number.”

“Of course. Jemma?”

Her icy glare struck him to the bone. She only did that thing with her mouth when she was furious and trying not to show it, and he had never had it directed his way before. Retrieving a pen from the drawer, she delicately placed it on a sheet of scratch paper and slid the whole thing across the desk. Daphne seized them and scribbled down the number, then a second one. “Better call Iris, actually. We’ll have to work around explaining it to Mama.”

He took the proffered paper and waved it in the air to dry the ink. “We’ll do that, then.”

Iris stood abruptly, grinding her second cigarette to powder in the glass ashtray. “I think we’ve trespassed on enough of your time. Thank you for the tea.”

“Of course,” Jemma said, rising as well. “We’re very glad you came by.”

He saw the sisters to the door of his office and directed Andrews to call them a cab, waiting until he heard the secretary’s voice before treading cautiously back to the desks. Busily completing his hasty organizing job, Jemma didn’t look up.

“You’re angry,” he said, watching the corner of her mouth twitch with her efforts to keep it steady.

“I am.”

He sighed, running a hand through his hair. “Are you going to tell me why? Because I don’t know.”

“Not at present.”

“All right.” He fell into one of the chairs, slowly turning the ashtray in a circle with a finger. “Are we going to discuss what just happened?”

“I can’t now,” she said, pointedly checking her watch. “I have some samples I really oughtn’t leave any longer.”

“When we get home then.”

She nodded briskly, then stuck her hands in the pockets of her skirt and walked out without a backwards glance. It was the first time, he realized with a pang, that she had left his office without kissing him goodbye.

Somehow he made it through the rest of the day. The sheer volume of his responsibilities certainly helped distract him, but they didn’t keep him from chewing it over like a cow’s cud. Why would she be so upset? All right, he had cut off her sentence with one of his own—and clearly, the opposite of what she meant to say—but that didn’t usually result in anger. She held her own, his Jemma, and when she disagreed she usually just repeated her thought more forcefully. Regardless of who happened to be in the room and what they might think about it. So it must have been _what_ he said, and cudgel his brains as he might, he couldn’t determine where he had stepped wrong.

By mutual agreement, they didn’t discuss it in the car. Nor did they attempt the conversation over dinner, choosing instead to listen to his mother’s cheerful chatter. Heavily involved with one of the two Presbyterian congregations in London, Jean had recently accepted the responsibility of co-chairing the annual charity drive and was now neck-deep in woolies and heels-out shoes. “And _what_ we’re to do with them all I can’t fathom,” she said, scraping her fork through the last remnants of whipped cream on her plate, “as we certainly have no need for all we’ve collected.”

“Perhaps you could take some to other parishes,” Jemma suggested. “The East End is always in need of goods. And medicine, and proper milk, and everything.”

Jean sighed. “There are those places everywhere. I’m more than familiar with that state, myself. Sometimes I worry Fitz never grew because he was raised on condensed milk. But then his father was never very tall, either.”

They both gave her tiny half-smiles. Busily going over every single syllable of the earlier conversation, Fitz hardly heard the jibe at his height.

The teasing expression slid off Jean’s face. “Is everything all right at the office?” she asked, looking between them.

“Fine.”

“Certainly.”

“It’s just I think this is the first time since your honeymoon that I haven’t had to tell you not to talk shop at the dinner table.”

“We’re in the middle—”

“There’s nothing particular—”

“All right.” Jean pushed back from her place to his left and stood. “I can tell when I’m not wanted.”

“No, Mam,” he protested, half rising, but she brushed him off.

“You two have been just missing each other’s eyes all night. Whatever you have to say, best clear the air.” She patted his shoulder as she passed him, shooting the smile she kept just for Jemma across the table. “Good night, dears.”

“Good night,” he echoed.

Jemma watched the door close behind her mother-in-law, a sick sense of dread in her belly. All afternoon she had been preparing herself for this conversation, this argument, rather—very nearly the first one she and Fitz had had, if one didn’t count disagreements in the lab. And those were distinctly different from this, because she had no facts to marshal to her side, only confusion and frustration and a question for which she had tried and failed to a satisfactory answer. She didn’t know where to begin. So she chose not to—this was his idea, after all; let him be the first to explain himself.

He fidgeted for a minute in his seat, pretending there was still apple charlotte on his plate. Then, apparently realizing she refused to make this easy for him, he began without looking at her. “I didn’t say yes, Jemma.”

She intentionally kept her voice even. “I don’t think they thought you did, Fitz.”

“I only thought we would want to talk before dismissing the idea out of hand.”

“So I gathered.”

He did look at her then, blue eyes darkly wary. As they should be. “We can say no,” he offered, two timbres away from conciliatory. “Ring them up this evening—”

“Certainly. I understand that you have not pledged us to any definite course of action. What I do not understand, Fitz, is why you even wish to consider it, when the very thought of this precise situation turned you white as a sheet six weeks ago.”

His mouth opened enough to emit the beginning of a _what_ , but she continued as though she didn’t see it.

“The inquest, the police, the trials, all of it—you wanted _nothing_ to do with any of it. I _promised_ you we wouldn’t do this again, and here you are willfully walking right back into it.”

“I am not,” he said, “walking willfully anywhere. Let me remind you I said we’d _discuss_ it.”

The simply _infuriating_ man, why did he refuse to understand her concern? It didn’t matter that he hadn’t said they would do it; the mere fact that he was considering it terrified her. Though they hadn’t been married at the time of the final trial and its result, she still had all the letters they had penned to each other in the aftermath, tear-speckled lamentations recounting nightmares and guilt-induced fasts and the knife-edged tension between justice and nausea. She knew he never walked by Old Bailey if he could help it, and Lane was under strict instructions to tactfully remove any part of the paper that had to do with capital offenses. What could possibly motivate him to contemplate actions that would take him smack in the middle of it again? “What is there to discuss?” she asked, hearing her carefully conned King’s English desert her somewhere around the _u_. “We have no reason to do it and every reason not to.”

“She’s just a girl, Jemma, and her father was killed and she doesn’t know why.”

“And it’s very sad, but is it our responsibility?”

“If it was your father—”

“That’s not fair, Fitz.”

“No, but it is!” She pressed her lips together, shaking her head in preparation for a rebuttal, but he spoke quicker and louder. “If it was Sir Robert with his head bashed in and the police leaving you out in the cold, wouldn’t you do anything you could to find his murderer? Wouldn’t you scrape the very bottom of the barrel until you had splinters under your fingernails? Jove, Jemma, I devoted how many years to making a better gas mask?”

She refused to think about her beloved father in Stafford Osbourne’s place, but she couldn’t avoid the squirmy knowledge that he was right. But why should _he_ suffer simply because someone else was?

“I’m not leaping at the idea,” he added, more quietly, as though he had read her mind. “I’ll admit that. But if we could help and didn’t—”

“You know we’re unlikely to find anything.”

“I know,” he said. “But she just wants to know somebody is doing _something_.”

All the fight left her, and she slumped back in her chair and sighed. “Why must you be so noble?”

His ears flushed, and he frowned the way he always did when someone paid him a compliment he felt was undeserved. “I’m not being noble.”

Oh, he never saw it, and of course that only made him more so. Sometimes she felt she could never be as good as Fitz; his nature was to be unselfish even at great cost to himself, while she suspected she would happily let the world burn to save him pain. There would be no arguing with him. Nor, in fact, did she wish to. Asking him to ignore the drive to help would be asking him to be less than himself. Fully aware that after this any objection she offered would only change the parameters of the experiment, she spread her hands beseechingly. “Are you thinking about this logically? If we agree, we will have to somehow find time between our work, the Trio, my studies, and the social events we will shortly no longer be able to avoid to investigate a months-old crime based entirely on information in the public domain, since the family at large doesn’t desire our assistance and we have none of the police’s resources.”

“I have, actually. I don’t think it will be as bad as you expect. What is it that Frenchman says, the one shaped like an egg—”

“He’s Belgian,” she corrected a bit crossly, “and I don’t see what he has to do with anything.”

Fitz tapped the side of his head significantly. “The little grey cells, Simmons. He swears you can solve crimes just by thinking about them. There’s two of us with better minds than, what, 97 percent of people—we should be able to get a good deal done in our off hours. It isn’t as though we have a time limit.”

She couldn’t help the smile that tugged at the corner of her mouth; she never failed to be flattered by his appreciation for her intelligence. Still, she rather thought he was overlooking an important fact. “Once we’ve gathered the information. And how will we do that, exactly, after so much time has passed?”

“Talk to people, like we did before. They won’t have forgotten and they might be less careful now. I remember everything clearly, don’t you?”

How could she forget? He knew her nightmares had taken on a decidedly red tint in recent weeks. His had, too, waking her in the middle of the night with his trembling and not going back to sleep until the soft caress of her hand across his cheek had slowed his pounding heart. And he wanted to open Pandora’s box all over again, letting out all the violence and danger that would only end with someone having their neck broken in the dim light of an early morning in prison. And where was the butterfly hope? Justice, she had come to realize, was small comfort. She stared at the wretchedly ugly centerpiece left over from Fitz’s uncle and said nothing.

“Jemma.” His trousers rustled, a chair creaked, and he plucked one tightly balled fist from her lap as he knelt beside her. “Jemma, if you don’t want to, we can say no. Your happiness is the one that matters most to me. But I think we could help them.”

She took a deep breath. All she could see were ways it could go horribly wrong—perhaps Fitz’s instinctive pessimism was transferring to her. But then, her optimism had obviously had an effect on him as well. If he had considered all sides of the issue and still wished to proceed, she could hardly refuse due to a concern on his behalf he didn’t share. He was her second set of eyes, after all; they provided each other perspective to see the whole situation with depth and clarity. And he was right: they could be helpful, even if it was only to ease Daphne’s pain while the police worked. Coming to a decision, she turned to face him, covering his hand with her other one. “But you must promise me something.”

“Anything.”

“We’ll be careful,” she said, not sure if it was a plea or a promise.

“Of course.” He lifted their hands to his mouth and kissed the back of her hand. “And we’ll get the job done.”

This time, her sigh remained inward and she offered her best attempt at a smile. “Well then, Fitz. I don’t suppose you have any more notebooks?”


	5. One Can Remove the Researcher From College...

The next afternoon, Fitz dragged out of a meeting with his factory supervisors, cursing Uncle George with every cell of his body. He had never approved of the laissez-faire way the former president conducted business, but the longer he stayed in this wretched position the more he understood it. Contentiousness was exhausting. Without looking behind him, he asked “What next, Andrews?” and braced himself for the answer.

“Nothing, sir.”

Fitz stopped so short Andrews nearly smashed into him. “Nothing? For how long?”

Pushing his spectacles up his nose, the secretary made a show of verifying with the portable diary, though Fitz knew he had the thing by heart. “All day, sir. Per Mrs. Fitz-Simmons’s direction, I’ve designated Thursdays as research day and intentionally not scheduled anything.”

“Jemma told you to do that?” The glorious girl, she must have set this in motion ages ago. He was so grateful he could kiss her—actually, what was stopping him from doing so? Feeling as though boulders had rolled off his back, he nodded seriously. “Yes, research. That’s good, then. I’ll just be doing research. In the lab. Or possibly elsewhere. You’ll hold my calls unless it’s Whitehall?”

“Certainly, sir,” Andrews said to Fitz’s rapidly retreating back, not quite shaking his head. Andrews, Fitz knew, did not quite approve of women. In this, he was a younger, tweedier Mr. Biggs.

Although he got waylaid several times in the corridors and once in the lift, he managed to skid into Jemma’s lab within a quarter of an hour. She looked up from her Bunsen apparatus sharply, her irritated frown quickly smoothing into a wide smile when she saw who it was. The motion pushed her goggles up her cheeks. “Done with your meeting, then?”

Leaning nonchalantly against the jamb, he shrugged with one shoulder. “Had a few minutes to spare. Or the rest of the day.”

Her eyebrows rose in mock surprise. “And however did you manage that, Mr. President?”

“Apparently the most brilliant person I know sorted it out with Andrews. If I understood him correctly, this is going to be a weekly occurrence?”

“How marvelous for your research partner! I know she feels as though she doesn’t have enough opportunity to work with you.”

“It’s mutual.”

She glimmered at him and ducked her head, going back to her work. “One moment, Fitz; this is rather delicate.”

He nodded, resting his head against the door and watching her contentedly. He loved her everywhere—in his office, at the dining room table, across a crowded room—but she was always most herself in the lab, and so he loved her best here. “Do you need my help for anything?”

“No, thank you. Nearly done with this bit.”

“And then what?” he asked, coming to peer over her shoulder. “Would you like to try synthesizing that compound to test—”

She held up a gloved hand to quiet him, forehead furrowed in concentration. He shut up obediently. Very slowly, she let three offensively pink drops fall from a rubber syringe into the spiral glass tube that fed the apparatus. The liquid ran down the tube into a wide-bottomed glass beaker with some sort of valve atop, which Jemma hastily screwed shut as soon as the drops hit the merrily bubbling clear solution within. As he watched, the pink spread and evaporated, filling the top half of the beaker with a nasty greenish haze. Jemma made a pleased noise.

“What _is_ that?” he asked, covering his nose and mouth with his sleeve just in case.

“It’s for exterminators,” she said happily, “so they don’t have to use cyanide or arsenic. Oh, Fitz!” Laughing, she pulled his elbow away from his face. “Darling fool, of course it’s harmless to humans. I’ve diluted it. Wouldn’t I be wearing a mask if it was dangerous?”

“I hope so,” he grumbled, “but sometimes you forget. And I’m rather fond of you.”

Pulling off her gloves, she shoved her goggles to the top of her head and leaned up to kiss his cheek. “For you, I will be careful.”

“Thank you.” Then, watching her shrug out of her lab coat, he tapped her arm with one finger. “Are we not working, then? I thought it was—”

“It is.” Taking her goggles off, she pushed her hair behind her ears and bit her lip. “Only, I thought perhaps we should do research for our other project?”

“What other project? It’s all the same thing, surely—” He trailed off as she raised her eyebrows expectantly, clearly expecting him to be a little quicker on the uptake. His mind raced back through their most recent conversations until it hit upon the only thing she wouldn’t need her lab coat to research: “Oh, you mean the investigation. Really?”

“I don’t often say things I don’t mean.”

“Not to me at least.” He crossed his arms, observing her thoughtfully. She didn’t seem fidgety or anxious as she did when she was attempting to dissemble, but her opposition to the idea had been so strong last night that he found the sudden change of heart a bit unbelievable. He had rather anticipated calling the whole thing off over tea. The last thing he wanted was to drive her to conclusions she didn’t assent to. “But are you _sure_?”

“Ugh, Fitz.” She rolled her eyes, bringing her hands up to circle her neck. “Yes, I’m sure. I’ve been thinking about it all morning and of course you’re right; we ought to help if we can. As long as we don’t raise anyone’s expectations it can’t do any harm to try, can it?” She canted her head, a twinkle appearing in her eye. “Regardless, it’s a lovely day outside and I’d rather spend it with you in Rosalind than even in the lab.”

And what idiot, he asked himself, would argue with that?

After informing Andrews of their intentions, they made their giddy way to Rosalind hand-in-hand. “Feels rather like skipping a lecture, doesn’t it?” she asked as she relinquished the keys.

He opened her door for her. “Which you’ve never done in your life.”

“I have so!” Carefully adjusting her hat, she pretended not to notice his skepticism. When he didn’t start the car, however, she relented with as much dignity as possible. “It may have been to attend another lecture, but what of it?”

Chuckling, he slid the key into the ignition and shook his head. “Only you, Simmons.”

It was a beautiful day, as she had said—unseasonably blue skies, perfect cotton clouds, just enough breeze to whip her hair from sleek perfection to blowsy wisps. Talking of everything and nothing, glancing at her at every stop, Fitz almost wished he had let her drive, even with her insistence at crawling along below the speed limit. The longer he could stretch the journey, the happier he would be.

All too soon, they spun up to the stolid brick building that contained the British Library’s extensive newspaper archives—every paper printed in the British Isles as far back as 1850, Jemma told him, and every single cricket booklet and advertising insert. Looking at it from the outside, Fitz found it difficult to believe the building could hold nearly ninety years of news. He changed his mind once inside. The reading room was stuffed with huge leather-bound tomes and racks of loose issues, reminding him of the days when newsprint was his only wallpaper, and the very air shimmered with word-laden dust. Even the recent papers he and Jemma needed to peruse left bits of paper in their laps every time they turned a page. Once they had the towering piles before them, Jemma turned to him, all business. “Would you like morning or evening?”

“I just thought I’d take a stack,” he said, gesturing.

“We have to do this methodically, or there’s no point in doing it at all.” She nodded briskly, and he did his best not to smirk. “I’ll take evenings, I suppose, since I usually read mornings. And you know what we’re looking for?”

“Of course,” he replied, slightly offended she felt the need to ask. “The inquest reports, and anything to tell us what trail the police are following.”

She sighed, pulling one of his notebooks from her bag. “I hope there’s actually something in here. I stopped paying attention, honestly. It was too much.”

He understood. There had come a point for him at which the dismal news from overseas was almost a relief. Rubbing his thumb over her wrist bone, he offered a reassuring smile and picked up his first paper.

They read for what felt like hours. At first the story blared from every headline: CHARITY BENEFIT MURDER; OSBOURNE MURDERED WHILE LONDON PARTIES; OSBOURNE BASHED AT BASH (from a particularly low-class rag). The articles all said essentially the same things, as did the obituaries that ran in the established papers. Fitz hadn’t expected anything different. With limited access to identical information, journalists were limited in what they could say without getting into trouble. Likely that was why the obituaries were nearly word-for-word—Stafford Osbourne was a generous man, a loving father and husband, a shrewd businessman who kept hold of his wealth even during the global financial difficulties, a well-beloved friend with no enemies—not that all that wasn’t necessarily true, but he had read it a hundred times before. Then coverage began to dry up, moving from the first page to the second, and then further in. Fitz’s eyes began to cross somewhere around the middle of August, and when he reached the issues from the current week he simply paged through at random and hoped to land on something. He didn’t think there was likely anything, anyway. Maybe an editorial or a call for justice in the letters, but the morning papers generally had other concerns. Folding up the _Post_ as well as he could, he pinched the bridge of his nose and arched his back to stretch out the stiffness.

Jemma’s hand sought his from across the table. “Poor Fitz. Any luck?”

Astoundingly, a glance at his notebook revealed several pages of information, none of which he recalled writing down. Much the way he had swotted for exams, actually. “Yeah, a bit. You?”

“It’s becoming an enormous blur,” she said tiredly, “and I haven’t got to August yet. There’s so much to read and cross-reference. The _Standard_ says one thing, the _Star_ another, someone called Hardy says he has an exclusive interview with a member of the family and another person called Puncheon appears to have set up shop across the street that night—you didn’t _carry_ me out, did you, Fitz?”

“No, you went out under your own steam.”

“I thought so. But everything’s rather hazy until you started the bath.” Sighing, she handed him her notes and returned to the nest of papers she had created, pushing hair off her forehead with one hand.

He flapped the notebook at her expectantly. “How d’you expect me to read this, Simmons? You know your handwriting worsens proportionally to the size of the page.” Opening it at random, he made a show of squinting at the loopy, overwritten words. “Meet in Stuttgart—”

“Study, Fitz!”

“—gun at back—” He paused, waiting for her to correct him. When nothing was forthcoming, he looked up sharply. “Gun?” he asked, incredulous, “there wasn’t a gun. Or if there was, why did the murderer use the poker? What is this from?”

“The apparent interview with the family.” She held out her hand and waited for him to return the book. Flipping back, she traced through the lines until she found what she wanted. “It’s Mrs. Osbourne’s experience, what she recalls. Listen to this, Fitz.” Clearing her throat, she read:

_According to the unnamed family member, Mrs. Osbourne was retrieving something from the desk when someone came up behind her, put what she thought was a pistol at the small of her back, and directed her to open the safe. As she did so, Mr. Osbourne came in and confronted the assailant. She does not recall anything after that. Police theorize, however, that there was an altercation resulting in Mr. Osbourne’s death, after which the criminal bludgeoned Mrs. Osbourne and made off with the contents of the safe and Mrs. Osbourne’s emerald necklace, valued at over_ _£10,000._

“I suppose that makes sense,” he said slowly, lifting his head from his hands where he had pillowed it to listen. “If they were by the safe the poker would be convenient to grab. But still, if he had a gun, why didn’t he just use that? Too noisy?”

She waved a hand carelessly. “If you like, or perhaps she doesn’t recall correctly. The more important question is—”

“Where are they getting this information?”

“Yes, exactly,” she said eagerly. “I’ve no idea how she recalls even this much; with the severity of her injury—”

“But as well, who told the reporter all this? It can’t be Mrs. Osbourne, or they would—”

“Anyway, she wants to hush it all up. Unless she didn’t at first, but—”

“What purpose would it serve? At the end of July the papers are still blaring with it. Regardless, the sympathetic widow—"

”—would gain more attention than an anonymous source, exactly. But who, then?”

Rustling through his discarded papers, he found the one he wanted near the bottom of the stack. Published the morning after the inquest, it included a photograph of the Osbourne family: Mr. and Mrs. holding hands in the center, Iris and Daphne behind them, a man on either side. He spun it to face her. “Daphne might have said something, I suppose. She seems the right temperament.”

“I rather think she’d give her name.” He acknowledged her point and she continued, sliding her finger to the next face in the picture. “Iris might be anonymous, but she’s too by-the-book. She wants to leave it to the police; she wouldn’t think the press’s sway would have much effect.”

“What about the men? I assume one of them is the brother and one Mr. Evans.”

She tapped the slightly sillier-looking one. “This is Mr. Evans. I met him at the benefit—well, he joined our group and Daphne said ‘that’s Budgie’ which I assume is his pet name.”

Fitz examined the photo: a short, rectangular man with a beaky nose and a frill of light hair grinned up at him foolishly. “It could be a real name. He certainly looks like a budgie. What did you think of him?”

“I’d hate to say.” Her finger left Budgie and moved to the last man, who looked, Fitz rather thought, like he had just woken up from sleeping on his desk in school—slightly confused, vaguely silly, dark hair all ruffled up on one side. “So this is Larry, then, about whom we know nothing except he is his mother’s pet.”

“And that he quarreled with his father.” Her eyebrows drew together in confusion, and he snapped his fingers quickly as he explained: “Remember, Lady Hermione told us. She said he must have come as a favor to his mother.”

“That’s right, she did.” Gazing pensively at the faces before her, she pillowed her chin in her hand. “Curious, isn’t it, when the Osbournes were so happy together, to have such a disparity in something so important as their child. We never would.”

“Certainly not. We are a united front.” A thought came to him, tripping on his sentence’s heels. “But then, we don’t know how serious the quarrel was. Perhaps it wasn’t anything important.”

She uncurled slowly, her fingers trailing down her cheek as her spine straightened and an idea dawned in her eyes. “Or perhaps it was. Fitz, have you seen anything to suggest that the police have investigated the family?”

“Well, we wouldn’t.” But as he mentally reviewed everything he had read, his head began a slow shake of its own volition. “And Iris said—”

“It’s far more likely to be a robbery,” Jemma quoted, nodding gravely. “Exactly. Fitz, we’re doing it again: we’re assuming a far from confirmed reading of the situation. We assume, and possibly the police assume, that the robbery was the intention and the murder was the accident. But what if it was the other way around?”

“Someone meant to kill Mr. Osbourne and the robbery was a cover.” It was at least worth considering, even if she wasn’t right to guard against the mistake that had nearly killed him last time (and of course, she was). He drummed his fingers against his chin. “But who?”

“That’s the question, isn’t it, because if it was someone from the outside, they would have to be lying in wait. But someone from inside—”

He gestured wildly to his front, sweeping his hands up and down. “—would have blood all over them. You said so. They couldn’t hide it.”

She nodded again, eyes glowing. “They’d have to change clothes.”

“So only the family—”

“And they’d stand to benefit the most from his death, wouldn’t they?”

“Even Larry, the dark horse?”

“Depending on the will.”

“Assuming there is one.”

“Well, there’s only one way to know that,” she said, snatching up her purse as she leapt to her feet. “We’ve got to go to Somerset House and read it.”

After stopping for a brief lunch, they made their way to Westminster and the enormous Georgian building that housed the National Registry. As with all governmental institutions, what should have been a simple process took much longer than either of them anticipated. Once they found the correct department and located someone to assist them, there was some question whether Stafford Osbourne’s will had even been filed yet—apparently, wills whose testators had been violently bashed in the head were often not executed until all parties named had been cleared of the evil deed. Fitz was glad they had eaten before; he would have been hard-pressed to keep his temper without a full belly. Eventually, however, they were directed to a desk and promised that the will would shortly appear.

Jemma moved her chair to allow him more leg space. “I didn’t even consider the will might not be here. Since it is, do you think that means that the police don’t seriously suspect the family? Because frankly, I find it difficult to believe that Mr. Osbourne wouldn’t make provision for his wife in his will, regardless of what he did for his children.”

“Or maybe there was something that needed to be done quickly.” He rested his elbow on the table and his cheek on his fist. “Like with Uncle George—Mr. Biggs put that in probate straightaway because I needed legal authority or the board would never accept it.”

“Though they didn’t suspect you by that time.”

“Well, no, but until they find who it is they have to be careful. You’re not allowed to profit by a crime, you know.”

She rolled her eyes. “Honestly, Fitz, who is my father? I cut my teeth on the law.”

“And yet you became a scientist.”

“Astoundingly, it’s easier to be a woman scientist than a woman lawyer. Anyway, I love science; I don’t love the law.”

“It’s good you know it, though,” he said, suddenly anxious. “If his will’s complicated at all it might be a problem. I’m still not entirely clear what our will says and we were with Mr. Biggs for hours.”

Patting his leg, she reached into her pocket for her notebook and smiled at the clerk coming toward them with a slim filebox in hand. “Our will says that everything goes to the other person, and then to our children. If Mr. Osbourne’s will is very difficult we’ll take our notes to Mr. Biggs and have him explain them.”

The clerk set the box down before them, unlocking it with a tiny key. “No notes, I’m afraid. It’s against regulations.”

“No notes!” Jemma stared up at her, aghast. “But how are we to—”

“Thank you,” he cut in quickly, pushing on the top of her foot with his, “we’ll let you know when we’re done.”

His wife turned to him as the clerk left them, her eyes wide and apprehensive. “Fitz! No notes? How are we expected to learn anything if we can’t record it?”

Standing to open the box, he pulled out the thick sheaf of papers and set it in front of them. “We’ll remember it, Simmons, and then we’ll write it down after. Come on, help me. This looks worse than Russell’s _Principia_.”

“Nothing is worse than Russell’s _Principia_ ,” she said, but pulled the stack toward her with a sigh.

By the time they waded through the entire Last Will and Testament, Jemma was ready to agree with him. Fitz’s already healthy appreciation for Mr. Biggs grew exponentially with every page of dense legal jargon that, when they reached the bottom, seemed to sum itself up in a sentence or two. Quickly realizing that they had no hope of understanding the document completely, they began to commit the provisions and bequests to memory. Rocking back and forth in her seat, Jemma muttered madly under her breath; he stared at the page with both hands in his hair until the words seemed imprinted on the back of his eyelids. The last page done—of which he was confident only that there was something about the SPCA—they slumped back in the chairs, heads spinning.

“Let’s never do that again,” she said, all the curly tendrils by her face frazzled.

“Couldn’t agree more, Simmons.” He closed his eyes and gathered the papers together, cramming them in the box with less care than he should have shown. “Quick, let’s get out of here and write it down before we forget it all. You know swotting’s no good in the long run.”

She threw her fur over her shoulder as she stood. “I do not know that, never having to rely on those methods of memorization. But I believe you.”

She pulled her notebook out as soon as they got into Rosalind, taking a pencil from the depths of her purse. “I wish they would invent pens that travelled well,” she said, licking the point. “Fix that, Fitz?”

Goodness knows it would be an invention on par with the steam engine, but he had several other things on his plate at present. “You’re going to do it now?” he asked instead, “how will you be able to read it after? Oh, never mind, it probably won’t make a difference.”

Shooting him a glare, she set the pencil deliberately to paper. “Item One: He had pots of money. _Piles_ of money. Have _we_ even got that much money?”

He pulled out into traffic, making the executive decision to head for home rather than the office. If they were going to shirk responsibility, they were going to shirk it properly. “Not liquid.”

“I didn’t think so. Then that much of his obituary is true, at least—he was a shrewd businessman, to keep hold of it when so many others had spectacular failures. Or perhaps there was something criminal in his past to explain it?”

“Worth researching,” he nodded.

She scribbled what was meant to be a star next to Item One and moved forwards. “Item Two: The bulk of the money to his wife with fifteen thousand pounds split equally between the children. But differently, did you notice? Mrs. Osbourne receives her share absolutely, but the children get it in trust.”

“I noticed, but I don’t know what it means.”

“ _Absolutely_ means that it belongs to her with no restrictions. _In trust_ means someone else has to sign off on using the money.” She tapped the end of the pencil thoughtfully. “But it’s odd, isn’t it? That’s usually something you do for children or people who are likely to be taken advantage of, I think. Why should their father put restrictions on them that way?”

“Another question,” he said, and she nodded. He continued, turning a corner carefully. “Item Three: He was also generous to several charities. The Conservative League—”

“The SPCA—”

“Several veterans’ organizations—”

“So,” she concluded, “either he was assuaging a guilty conscience, or he was actually a decent sort of fellow. Obviously the former would be better for our investigation, but I rather hope it was the latter. Though I suppose the money isn’t tainted, even if he was an awful man.”

“Item Four: personal bequests—his servants, primarily, but why didn’t you tell me about Miss Forbes?”

“What about her?” she asked distractedly, busy underlining something.

“About the money Osbourne left her—three hundred pounds, I think.” From the corner of his eye, he saw her blanch. “Didn’t you notice?”

“No,” she said, “I didn’t notice. I skimmed past those bequests.”  

“It could be another Sylvia Forbes, I suppose, there’s no reason for him to know her.”

She opened her mouth to say something, shut it, and started over. “No, it’s our Sylvia. She’s their goddaughter—estranged, I thought, to a certain extent, but he might leave her money anyway.” Directed over the edge of the car at the shops they were whisking past, her voice floated away from him so quietly he almost didn’t hear it: “I wonder why she didn’t say.”

Yes, that was curious. One would think that a sudden windfall would be something to celebrate, particularly when it would allow one to be married after years of waiting. Fitz’s suspicions came to attention. Why wouldn’t she say anything? To avoid being connected with the situation? Because she knew something and didn’t want to tell? Because she knew something and was being threatened not to tell?

Then he shook his head sharply. For heaven’s sake, he chastised himself, how dramatic could he be? More likely, she simply preferred to keep her financial situation private.

“Perhaps she just didn’t want to have everybody in her business,” Jemma said, turning back to him. No longer surprised at their mental synchrony, he was about to continue casually when he caught sight of her lip caught between her teeth, her fingers twisting the pencil between them. Still worried, then.

Risking her wrath, he took one hand off the steering wheel and laid it lightly over hers on the seat between them. “More than likely. It was such a small amount, comparatively. I wouldn’t shoot her to the top of the suspect list just yet.”

“Well—” She sighed, shutting up the notebook with the pencil to hold her place. “If we don’t suspect Sylvia yet and we certainly can’t suspect the Conservative League or the SPCA, from the evidence of the will we have only the family. As before.”

“Or someone else entirely that we don’t know to look for yet.” A noncommittal hum told him she wasn’t convinced, and he lightened his tone as he slid Rosalind into line behind a Silver Arrow. “And, Simmons, you know better than anyone that people who look suspicious from the will aren’t always murderers. If they were you would be married to one.”

“I may be yet,” she said, “if you continue to drive unsafely.” But she gripped his hand quickly before returning it forcibly to the wheel. “Honestly, Fitz.”

The lilt in her voice was enough for him, and he drove in strict accordance to every traffic bylaw the rest of the way home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun Fact: the British Library's newspaper archives were destroyed in the Blitz, but they somehow managed to re-collect all their holdings and now they STILL have copies of every newspaper going back to the 1850s. I have taken a bit of artistic license. You need to be granted access to the library—there's an application—but I didn't have time for that in the story. On the other hand, one really could walk in and pay a small fee to look at anyone's will.


	6. Tea For Three

Much later that afternoon, Fitz paused his lazy experimentation with chromatic chords long enough to remind her that they hadn’t officially taken on the investigation. “I think I left the number at the office, though, so it’ll have to wait ’til tomorrow.”

Yawning, she set down her book and swung her feet to the floor. “What a pity we haven’t got a handy book to look numbers up. No, Fitz,” she said, stalling him halfway up from the piano bench, “I’ll ring them. You stay and play.”

“I’m the one who said we should do it,” he said, already returning to his seat.

“We both agreed.” Brushing a hand over his shoulders, she pressed a kiss to the top of his head on her way to the door. “Mrs. Evans and I will understand each other, I think.”

As she looked up the number and waited for the call to connect, Jemma rehearsed her argument. In agreeing to the investigation she and Fitz were, to a certain extent, contracting themselves to a job; contracts required negotiation, and she was determined to ensure the agreement favored her interests. Fitz, for all his newly-gained business acumen, would never think to protect himself. Happily, he now had her to keep him safe.

“Ah, Mrs. Fitz-Simmons.” Iris Evans’s voice sounded like the clink of ice in a cocktail. “That was much fast than anticipated. If you’re calling with your decision, that is.”

“I am,” Jemma said, surprised to hear her mother’s cool, superior tones. “Mr. Fitz-Simmons and I have decided we will look into this on your family’s behalf.”

“Oh, no, Mrs. Fitz-Simmons. Mother and Larry are still opposed to the idea; it wouldn’t be accurate to say it’s on behalf of the family.”

Jemma rather thought that a tick-tacky distinction, but appreciated the exactness. “We won’t use that misnomer, then. Should it become necessary, we shall say ‘members of the family’.”

“Do you think it will be necessary to say anything of the sort?”

Jemma pursed her lips. “I really couldn’t say at present. Of course people _may_ believe Fitz and I have a morbid interest in murder, but equally they may be a bit curious.”

“Only if necessary, then.” Iris spoke firmly, not allowing disagreement. Respectfully, Jemma decided to let it be. She and Fitz could work around that requirement, and granting it gave her enough leverage for a request of her own.

“Mrs. Evans, forgive me for being indelicate, but you do realize we shall have to follow the investigation wherever it leads. It may be. . . unpleasant to you, to have near strangers—”

“That doesn’t matter.”

“It doesn’t?” Jemma repeated, surprised.

“No. If there’s something rotten in Denmark, everyone will know about it sooner or later. I expect you and Mr. Fitz-Simmons will be discreet and not abuse anything you may discover.”

“That’s awfully blasé,” she said.

Iris hummed a mirthless laugh. “I have nothing to fear from you.”

“Certainly not.” Jemma ticked off her mental memoranda, leaving only one item. Before she could breach it, though, a scuffle at the other end of the line distracted her. Through what was clearly a hand over the speaker, a muffled man’s voice demanded something; Iris’s smooth elegance snagged on a brusque “of course not”; the man said something else, to which Iris replied “they have plenty of their own money, it would be an insult to even suggest such a thing.” Quite, Jemma agreed, ears growing warm at the very thought. Money was of no matter here.

Iris came back on the line, clear as a bell once more. “My apologies.”

“Oh, that’s all right.” Clearing her throat, she returned to the subject at hand—arguably the most important of her demands. “Mrs. Evans, may I speak frankly?”

“Certainly, if you have something unpleasant to say.”

“Not unpleasant, I think, just more direct than is usual. I know you don’t think we’ll have success—”

“I didn’t mean that as an insult.”

“I know,” she said, “I’m not insulted. I only wanted to tell you that we haven’t failed in anything we’ve done together yet. That said, there might come a time when we can no longer continue. I must insist that should that occur, we are allowed to cease without questions.”

The connection hissed and popped as Iris fell silent. Jemma shoved her hand in her pocket and waited. She would manage her concerns about having time to spare, but she had been unable to argue herself out of her concern for Fitz. Let Iris think what she would; for his sake, Jemma refused to get into this without an escape route.

“An ultimatum?” Iris said finally, “well, Daphne will cry her eyes out if I tell her you aren’t going to do it, so I suppose I must agree. But it’s only fair to levy one of my own: don’t ask my family to rake it all up again. People will talk. None of us can tell you anything anyway except Mama, and I don’t want her to have to think about it more than she already does. Do you agree to these terms?”

Jemma paused, considering. On one hand, agreeing to those terms would entirely ruin the plan of attack she and Fitz had decided upon over the course of the afternoon—they had to talk to _someone_ who knew Stafford Osbourne well, after all, or they would never know what they didn’t know. On the other hand, a little ease was hardly worth Fitz’s peace. She could entirely sympathize with the desire to protect one’s loved ones. “We’re agreed,” she said firmly. “Shall we continue to ring you as the investigation continues?”

“If you find something, certainly.” Jemma did not think she imagined the emphasis on the word _if_.

Fitz didn’t look up when she came back into the room, humming what she recognized as a trumpet to accompany his improvised piano solo. Dropping onto the bench beside him, Jemma waited patiently, smiling when he caught her gaze. She still didn’t understand jazz, try as she might, but she loved to watch his hands fly and his eyes glow. He came to a crashing end and lifted his hands with a dramatic flourish that would have impressed Snakehips Johnson himself. She applauded wildly. “Marvelous, darling!”

He bumped her shoulder with his own, smirking. “Did you enjoy the improvised cross rhythm in the middle there?”

As though she had any idea what that meant, forget what it sounded like. “Tremendously.”

Going back to the keyboard to begin a simple tune she recognized from the wireless, he didn’t bother to look at his hands. _Show-off_ , she said with a roll of her eyes, and his grin grew wider. “So? Are we adding ‘investigator’ to our titles?”

“Oh, yes, that’s all fine.” She plunked a few keys at her end thoughtfully. Without missing a beat, he picked up her hand and set it back in her lap. “Only the family doesn’t want to speak to us.”

“What?”

“She says it will be too difficult for them to hash it out again. How could I ask them to relive that?”

“You couldn’t.” Frowning, he switched to a slower song—or perhaps it was the same song at a different tempo. She couldn’t really tell. “That puts a bit of a spanner in the works, but it’s not too devastating.”

“It isn’t?”

He shook his head.

“Why not?”

“We’ve got other resources.”

She turned to better face him, bumping their knees together. “Would you mind being just a _mite_ less enigmatic?”

The look he shot her was pure incredulity. “Sylvia Forbes, Simmons! You said she’s the goddaughter, didn’t you?”

“I did,” she said slowly. “She would know at least a bit more than common knowledge, I suppose.”

He nodded. “What do we need now? To understand the characters. She can either help us or she can direct us to someone who can.”

One finger went to the keys again, but she stopped herself before actually sounding a note. “I’m not sure it’s good form to pump my friend for information, Fitz.”

“I don’t mean we should sneak and pry without her knowledge. But it couldn’t do any harm to ask, could it?”

Then he returned his attention to the piano, leaving her the space to think in peace. Whatever she decided, she knew he would abide by; he might disagree, but he had a canny ability to know when to argue and when to compromise. Her friendship with Sylvia was certainly the latter. Girl friends had been rare in her life and ones who were able to meet her intellectually nonexistent; she didn’t want to do anything to jeopardize their relationship. Fitz, who had never had friends himself, respected that. After some consideration, though, she agreed that as long as they were perfectly straightforward, there would be no harm in making the most of one’s connections. Not to mention it would kill several birds with one stone: data for the investigation, a chance for Fitz to meet Sylvia, and an excuse for a really glorious tea.

Sylvia, as expected, demurred. “At Fortnum & Mason? That’s rather grand for a business meeting.”

“But it’s not only a business meeting,” Jemma said eagerly, “you know how much I want you and Fitz to know each other. Naturally it can’t happen near the office or it would look like we’re playing favorites.”

Sylvia pressed her lips together, looking fixedly at the rubber band she was stretching between her fingers: taut, loose, taut, turned into a belt around the engine of her index fingers. Watching the motion, Jemma spoke as casually as she could manage. “Our treat, of course—it’s a favor you’re doing for us, so we won’t hear of anything else. And we’ll all be coming from the office so there’s no need to fuss over clothes. Please, Sylvia, we’d love you to come.”

The rubber band snapped through the air and disappeared. “Oh, all right,” Sylvia said, her dimple coming out from behind the clouds. “But only because I’ve heard so much about Mr. Fitz-Simmons I can’t quite believe he’s real.”

On Monday, therefore, Jemma, Fitz, and Sylvia found themselves in Fortnum & Mason’s lavish tearoom, partaking of the delicate sandwiches and scrumptious scones with gusto. As they ate they discussed ordinary things to the accompaniment of the airy piano, having come to a mutual if unspoken agreement that it would be best to wait on the real conversation until they could be sure not to be interrupted by helpful waiters. Sylvia and Fitz got on famously, as Jemma expected. More surprisingly, for once their quick way of speaking over and around each other didn’t frighten away their conversation partner. Sylvia leapt right into the fray, darting, blocking, thrusting, now on Jemma’s side, on Fitz’s, and once or twice on her own. Dimple flashing, hands flying, she was nearly recognizable. As Jemma watched her friend hold her own against Fitz’s stubborn insistence that a monkey would make a lovely pet, she wondered how she had never realized that Sylvia’s eyes were nearly gold. Perhaps she had never seen them in the right light.

“You’ll never convince me, Mr. Fitz-Simmons,” Sylvia said firmly, shaking her head. “I knew someone with a pet monkey when I was a girl, and it was the most bad-tempered, filthy beast you could imagine. And it was an absolute pig about fruit.”

She could tell from Fitz’s face he wanted to argue the point, but as their teapot was freshly filled and this conversation had continued long enough, she felt the time had come to break in. “When was that, Sylvia? I thought that kind of thing wasn’t done anymore.”

“In India,” she replied. “I was born there, you know, and lived there until I was eight or nine years old. My father was in rubber. That’s how I know the Osbournes.”

“Oh,” Fitz said, “is that how he made his money?”

Jemma only just refrained from rolling her eyes; of course Fitz knew that, having read more than one obituary. Sylvia didn’t seem to notice.

“Yes. Well, better to say that was where he made his seed money.”

“Stocks?” Jemma asked, and Sylvia nodded.

“Invested in all the right things; the Crash hardly touched him. Unlike. . . unlike others.”

Jemma and Fitz shared a question and answer quickly over Sylvia’s head as she contemplated the tea in the bottom of her cup: _ask for more detail? Too sensitive; better not._ Their decision made, she Sylvia’s recompleted thought stand and asked another question. “Did you know the children there, too, or not until you came back to England?”

Obviously relieved, Sylvia nodded and picked up another sandwich. “Oh, I knew them there. Well, I knew Iris and Daphne; Larry was older and didn’t play with little girls. I've never known him very well.”

_Bother_ , Fitz said. Jemma quite agreed. They had been relying on Sylvia to provide them with information on the cipher of the Osbournes’s only son. Their lack of knowledge was beginning to grate. “But Daphne,” he added aloud, “she must have been only a baby at the time, mustn’t she?”

Chewing quickly, Sylvia choked a little before answering. “No. That is, she was quite small, but I think she must have been nearly five when I left for school.”

“Five!” Fitz exclaimed, mouth dropping open until Jemma placed her hand on his thigh to remind him.

“That’s not possible,” she said, quick on his heels, “when you were nine years old _we_ were that age. Miss Osbourne isn’t as old as we are, is she?”

But Sylvia merely flickered a bemused eyebrow. “Of course she is. What did you think?”

Fitz raised an at-sea palm to the ceiling. Jemma, more familiar with the stages of feminine maturation, offered “Twenty?”

“That’s Daffy,” Sylvia laughed. “She’s always been that way—lacks the switch to turn on appropriate behavior. We used to joke that she was secretly a Yank.” Face suddenly clouded, she leaned forward. “It was only a joke, though; there’s never been the slightest gossip about Mrs. Osbourne. Everyone knows she and Mr. Osbourne are— _were—_ devoted to each other. And Daphne’s a dear, really. She’s the only one who made an effort after.”

“After what?” Fitz asked.

Jemma inhaled quickly. _After_ meant after the estrangement, of course, which no doubt meant after Sylvia’s family lost all their money, and they had already agreed not to press Sylvia about that. Fitz was usually so sensitive about financial matters, too. Years of poverty granted him an awareness she, with her privileged upbringing, lacked. Sylvia too had a mental adding machine that never stopped whirring, so horribly conscious of her lack; making her discuss it would be unkind. “Never mind,” she began, but Sylvia spoke over her hurriedly.

“It’s fine, Jemma. After I went up to Oxford, when Mr. Osbourne and I quarreled.”

That not being the answer she anticipated, Jemma wasn’t sure how to respond. Neither, apparently, was Fitz, who pulled the pot of clotted cream towards him and began heaping it on a scone. “Er,” he said between swipes, “I don’t expect it’s relevant, but—”

“Why did we quarrel?” Sylvia’s mouth twisted wryly. “Much the same reason fathers quarrel with any child, I suppose—he didn’t approve of how I wished to live my life. My own parents were dead and he felt he had a right to dictate to me, and I defied him.”

“He didn’t approve of _Oxford_?” Jemma said, aghast. She could not fathom such a thing. “Did he not want to foot the bill?”

“Oh no.” Sylvia laughed without humour. “It wasn’t Oxford, it was science. Women Do Not Do Science, in his mind, and he Would Not support it. He would have happily financed a trip abroad or a small hat shop if I wished it. He was very liberal to causes he agreed with.”

Remembering her father’s unwavering support, recalling that Fitz’s gift to the bride had been her own lab at Macpherson, Jemma felt too guilty to respond. Eyes on her, Fitz picked up the slack. “Yes, we’ve seen the will.”

A glint of bronze sparked in Sylvia’s eyes. “So you see, then? No lasting ill will. Perhaps we were unkinder to each other than we truly felt. Still, it does rather feel like insult to injury.”

Jemma could see how that might be; a sudden windfall could hardly make up for years of scrimping and saving. Beside her, Fitz dropped his eyes to his plate. “Particularly,” he said, “when you have no reason to expect it.”

Sylvia used one finger to nudge her teacup around by its handle, pausing at each quarter hour. “If I had ever thought about it, I might have expected it. Please don’t misunderstand. Stafford Osbourne was a good and kind man. Only once you fell out there was no going back to the way things were. He would be civil and fair, but no more.”

“Then why was Daphne the only one to maintain connection?” Jemma asked, and Fitz nodded support.

“I never knew Larry, as I said; Iris doesn’t do anything to make waves; Mrs. Osbourne—well, you know what marriage is like better than I do. Someone has to have the dominant voice.”

Jemma glanced sharply at Fitz, trying to keep her question limited to her eyes: _Dominant voice_? The crease between his eyebrows meant he was as bewildered as she was. “You mean he wouldn’t let her?” he asked, confusion coloring every word.

“There wasn’t a question of _letting_. She wouldn’t have wanted to go against what he said.”

“What if she disagreed?” Jemma pressed.

Sylvia’s forehead drew together, and she laughed a little as she looked between them. “I never heard her disagree. And I don’t think she would have mentioned it if she had. They were _devoted_ to each other.”

Yes, Jemma thought, but devotion didn’t mean that one gave up one’s self. She and Fitz argued, on average, four times a day and, personally, she loved him the better for it. Trying and failing to imagine blindly going along with whatever he said—or, more troubling, having him do the same for her—she took a long draught of tea to hide her face. Fitz leaned back in his chair, drumming his fingers against the table. “All right,” he said with the air of a teacher agreeing to an incorrect minor detail in order to resume class, “so Miss Osbourne was the only member of the family with the inclination to keep up the connection. How often did you see the Osbournes, then? Or was it only Daphne?”

Sylvia’s eyes followed one of the wait staff across the room as she considered. “Not terribly often—once or twice a year, perhaps. It wasn’t often convenient to accept the invitations.”

_Convenient_ being code for the impossibilities of dress or the tyranny of working hours, Jemma expected. About to ask a follow-up question, she meant to wait until the waiter passed them, only to realize that he had a message for their table. Smooth as silk, he apologized for the interruption. “I have a telephone call for Mr. Fitz-Simmons from the office. It was mentioned that there was some urgency.”

“Can’t a man have his tea in peace?” Fitz threw his napkin on the table as he got to his feet. “Go ahead, ladies, I’m sure I’ll be right back.”

“He won’t,” Jemma told Sylvia, admiring the line of his back as he walked away. “If Andrews felt it necessary to ring it’s sure to be something important. Andrews knows how seriously Fitz takes his teas.”

Sylvia took up the sugar tongs and lifted a cube from the top of the bowl, putting it into her empty teacup. “Yes, I’ve rather gathered that: monkeys, and science, and tea, and you. Not in that order, of course.”

“That might be reversed, actually,” she said, a pleased golden swell filling her chest.

A corner of Sylvia’s mouth quirked up—the left side, without the dimple—and her eyes turned the color of mud. “We should all be so lucky.”

Jemma reached out to clasp Sylvia’s free hand. She knew by now what that face meant. “But now you have Mr. Osbourne’s money, surely you can finally be married? Even if Mr. Jones still doesn’t have work—”

The bitterness of Sylvia’s scoff surprised her. “Work?” she said, plunking another cube into her still empty cup, “no, it’s rather difficult for a man to find work when his ideals don’t allow it. Never mind he’s being intellectually inconsistent—”

Jemma sucked in a breath; she and Sylvia agreed that intellectual inconsistency was a sin on par with stealing from widows. “Sylvia, what do you mean?”

“Oh!” Dropping the sugar tongs, she reached out for Fitz’s discarded napkin and began twisting it into tight knots. “He’s just—oh, I don’t even know how to explain.”

“By all means, then don’t,” Jemma said firmly. If one didn’t know how to explain, in her experience trying to find the words only worsened one’s confusion.

Sylvia didn’t look up from the napkin, but Jemma could hear the desperation in her voice. “I meant to, though—there’s a favor I meant to ask you, but I can’t without explaining. Perhaps I shouldn’t ask at all.”

“Certainly you should. Aren’t you doing a favor for Fitz and me right now?”

“Yes, but it’s a much more difficult favor than a posh tea.” Taking a shaky breath, Sylvia looked up from the napkin and forced the words past reluctant lips. “Will you come dine with me at the Soviet Club?”

“What?” Jemma gasped, looking over her shoulder to see if anyone had heard. The Soviet Club, once tolerated amusedly, was no longer viewed as a benign society; a concerned government had begun shutting down socialist newspapers and arresting agitators. While still socialist in theory, even the Labour party had banded together with more revolutionary Liberals for their mere survival. They wouldn’t be arrested just for mentioning it, but a nervous squirm trailed up Jemma’s spine regardless.

Sylvia resumed strangling the napkin. “I’m sorry, I wouldn’t have even asked, but I have no one else. Mark’s besotted with them. He refuses to work, saying that it’s all capitalist oppression; he’s out with them every night; he wants me to accept the money so he can give it all to this man called Charles whose opinion I’m reasonably certain he cares for more than he does mine—”

“Sylvia. Sylvia.” Casting concerned glances at the parties around them, who were beginning to perk up their ears, Jemma covered her friend’s twisting hands with both her own. “Darling, I’m sure it’s not as bad as all that.”

“It is,” Sylvia said dully, “I’ve been trying to ignore it for months. It’s only just become serious—he wants to take me to the club and introduce me around.”

“To his friends there? Isn’t that a good sign?”

She sighed, utter exhaustion in her face. “I think it’s only to make me stop nagging him about it. If I join the cause, he thinks it will all be smooth sailing—but I’m desperately afraid, Jemma. The few I’ve met by accident have stared at me with burning eyes, like they’re going to devour me.”

“Surely not,” Jemma said before she could help herself.

“No, of course not. But I don’t want to know what they _would_ do. I want to get Mark out of there, but trying to reason with him has no effect. He only says I don’t understand. The only thing I can think to try is to join him, just for a bit, to show him that I do understand and still don’t agree. Perhaps if I plead—” Sylvia broke off, holding her palms to the sky helplessly.

Jemma shifted uncomfortably in her chair. Pleading had such a negative connotation; surely Mark would _want_ to hear Sylvia’s perspective and respect it when she had told him? Surely any man who loved a woman would desire her happiness? But one could hardly say such things. She would never call into question the quality of the attachment between any two people. “I don’t see where I come into it, though,” she said instead. “I’ve never met Mark; am I to convince him?”

Twisting her hands to grasp Jemma’s, Sylvia shook her head fervently. “No, you’re moral support. I can’t face it alone.”

“But you’ll have Mark.”

“I’ll have no one.”

Jemma looked down at their clasped hands, mind whirring. She could think of few things she’d rather do less than dine at the Soviet Club with people who looked like they wanted to devour you—hurt her parents; eat haggis; go an entire day without seeing Fitz. But the strength with which Sylvia gripped her and the fact that she had been driven to ask at all combined to signify the depths of her worry and fear. Jemma was no more capable of leaving a friend in that state than she was leaving someone bleeding out on the sidewalk. With difficulty, she called up a smile. “Of course I’ll come, then. What evening, so I can be sure we’re free?”

“Oh, Jemma, thank you!” The light returned to Sylvia’s face, giving Jemma some measure of reassurance that she had made the right choice. “But Mr. Fitz-Simmons can’t come—people will recognize him, and he’s a capitalist.”

“Fitz?” Jemma repeated incredulously. “Only by inheritance.”

“It doesn’t make any difference to them. Mark will never believe it, anyway; it’s going to be difficult enough to convince him you might be sympathetic.”

She frowned. Going without Fitz? It wouldn’t be inappropriate, per se, but neither would it be entirely in keeping with propriety. Then, too, she didn’t relish the idea of a whole evening with this Mark, whom she already found tiresome, without her husband to cleanse the palate. Sneaking another look at Sylvia’s hopeful eyes, though, she immediately capitulated. “Oh, all right,” she said, “only I have to tell Fitz. It mustn’t be a secret.”

“By all means,” Sylvia agreed, finally relaxing back into her seat. “Tell Mr. Fitz-Simmons, of course.”

“Tell me what?”

Jemma had no idea how long Fitz had been standing there; his perturbed expression could signify any number of things, only one of which was not being noticed. She shoved out his chair with her foot. “I’m going to the Soviet Club with Sylvia sometime, and with her fiance. I’m afraid you aren’t invited, though, you capitalist. You don’t mind, do you?”

“No,” he said, not sitting, “I hear the food’s rotten there.”

Craning her neck to look at him, she canted her head to better watch his face. “Aren’t you sitting?”

He visibly grumped, pushing his lips out petulantly. “I have to go back to the office. Andrews says there’s some men I can’t put off.” _Whitehall_ , his eyes said, and she nodded. Turning to Sylvia, he offered an apologetic shrug. “I’m very sorry to dash out early, Miss Forbes. I’m afraid we didn’t get as far as we hoped.”

“I’ll stay with Sylvia, Fitz, unless you need me to come with you?”

It was only a matter of form; she wasn’t invited to Whitehall meetings. As she had known he would, he shook his head. “They’re already calling a car for me. Enjoy the rest of the tea, won’t you? And I’ll see you in the lab, Jemma—remind me to bring that drawing.”

“Of course,” she smiled. “I’ll see you there.”

With a dip of his head to Sylvia, he left quickly. Jemma watched him go with regret. Somehow, this didn’t seem as fun without him. But she would see him later, she consoled herself, and at dinner, and all night long if she wished.

“You’re very lucky, you know.”

“I know,” she said, unable to look at Sylvia. “Fitz is a brilliant collaborator.”

Sylvia made an agreeing noise. “But not just that—well, yes, but also—”

“But also what?” she asked when Sylvia didn’t continue.

“Never mind,” Sylvia said.


	7. The Wisdom of Ages

Sylvia’s information, once entered into their official investigation notebooks, proved to be little enough. They knew more about Stafford Osbourne, yes, had some idea of the relationship between him and his wife and, vaguely, him and his children, but Sylvia’s lack of interaction with the Osbournes as adults severely crippled their attempts to get into the psyches of their suspects. Fitz looked up from the notebook, chewing on the end of his pen. “Larry’s a question mark, Iris is as we already guessed, Daphne is sillier than we thought, and she didn’t even mention Mr. Evans. We’re no forwarder than we were.”

Jemma, lying on her back on their sofa with her feet in his lap, put one hand lazily in the air. “It was a glorious tea, at least.”

“Obviously.” Fitz sorely regretted the necessity of running out halfway through. Several sandwiches had remained on the platter, and his perfectly clotted creamed scone had been heartlessly abandoned. “And I liked Miss Forbes. What did you talk about after I left?”

Jemma sighed heavily. “We didn’t stay much later, honestly; poor thing wants to work every second, and not because she enjoys it. I wish I knew how to help her, Fitz.”

“Won’t the money help?” he asked. He recognized the lines around Sylvia’s eyes. Worry had a way of marking a person as its own.

“Money doesn’t solve everything, as you know. I don’t know that it will now, either—maybe years ago, but something else is afoot with Mark that money might only make worse.”

“Ah,” he said. “The Soviet Club.”

She pushed up on her elbows and regarded him steadily, her forehead creased in concern. “You don’t mind, do you, Fitz? I know it’s sensitive, with Whitehall, but I think I can explain it if word gets out. Though how that will happen I’m sure I don’t know; they aren’t keen on publicity for obvious reasons—”

Squeezing her ankles with one hand, he used the other to toss the notebook onto the side-table. “You have a good reason, yeah? I’d rather get in trouble with Whitehall than have you not do something you felt like you should.”

“But the Project,” she said, not reassured, and he held out his hand for hers. Once it was firmly in his grasp, he kissed the tip of each finger.

“You think they can just take it from me? At this point? Even if they could find someone else to do the work, who could replicate my fraternal if fearful relationship with Tony Stark?” That resulted in a smile, and he continued more confidently. “I hardly think one dinner with a friend is going to have the apocalyptic results you assume. Even Whitehall doesn’t know everything.”

She hummed acquiescence, using his hand to leverage herself into a sitting position. Taking her feet from his lap and folding them under her, she rested an elbow on the back of the sofa and propped her chin on her fist. Fitz felt his face soften as he looked at her. It was rather as though, he reflected, he was a pat of butter left to sit in her sun. Busily counting the flecks of gold in her eyes—he could never decide if there were twelve in each, or thirteen in one—he didn’t realize she had spoken until her gaze became slightly exasperated and he felt the firm press of her knuckle against his leg. “What?”

“I said,” she enunciated deliberately, “what did they want this afternoon? Whitehall, I mean.”

“Oh.” Fitz came back from more pleasant mental paths with a wrench. He frowned without meaning to, all his earlier confusion and irritation back in full force. “Nothing—at least, nothing that required leaving that beautiful scone. It wasn’t urgent at all.”

“Then why—”

He threw his hands up in the air. “Your guess is as good as mine! Well, better, of course.” She rolled her eyes fondly. Turning to better face her, he matched her posture and gestured wildly with the other hand. “They asked me if I keep up on the news, as if that was a thing people didn’t do, and what I know about weaponry, and a little about your work—”

“My work?” she repeated, eyebrows shooting up, “what has that to do with—”

“They didn’t say. They didn’t say anything. I expect they’re in the process of planning something they might need my help with, but I can’t begin to imagine what.” Not weapons, since they were investing so heavily in the Project—besides, the papers were full of news about Czechoslovakia, and the government was steadfastly pursuing a policy of non-engagement. And Jemma’s work didn’t appear to apply to anything, though he would happily talk about her brilliance as long as anyone would listen. He sighed, gears spinning as fruitlessly as they had done all afternoon.

“Which of my work did they ask about?”

He glanced up quickly, certain before he saw it what look would be on her face: the tight-lipped uneasiness he associated with the gushing well-wishers that chomped at their privacy like sharks. “Do you mind?” he asked, suddenly afraid he had betrayed her confidence without meaning to, “I thought, since you had that paper published and all, it was common knowledge—they can hardly steal your research now—”

“Oh, about the poison gas countermeasures?” Her face cleared instantly. “No, I don’t mind that. But that’s curious, Fitz, why would they ask about that? It’s all in the paper.”

“Perhaps they can’t understand it.”

“Likely,” she snorted. “The government’s a bit of a fool about that kind of thing.”

“If you don’t want me to talk about your work I won’t.” He took the hand resting in her lap. “I know we’re not _really_ one person and it’s not actually mine.”

She bit her lip and looked at a spot over his head for a second. He let her think in peace, rubbing his thumb over her knuckles. Then, returning her attention to him with a brisk nod, she said, “In general, I’d rather not. But Whitehall, that’s something else. It might be something important, mightn’t it? They won’t ask me, but if you know my work will be helpful, I don’t mind if you talk about it. Only be judicious.”

An easy promise to make—he guarded her work more jealously than she did. “I will. And I’ll tell you about it after, so you know.”

“Naturally,” she said primly.

They fell silent, each lost in their own thoughts. Fitz returned to the well-worn paths he had trod this afternoon, whirling out increasingly far-fetched possibilities in between regret for the unfinished tea. It had been _such_ a good scone. He wondered if Jemma had finished it, or Sylvia, perhaps as a balm for her anxious soul. Poor girl. Their conversation at tea hadn’t touched on subjects of any importance, but the tight way she held her shoulders and the dark caverns beneath her eyes were enough to give him a decent idea of the strain she was under. He sympathized, vividly recalling the tense knot that sat between his shoulder blades all through school and his time as Uncle George’s secretary. He had never quite escaped the feeling that something horrible lay in wait for him if he put so much as a step wrong: he would be told to leave, or his mother would fall ill, or he would be in a freak accident and lose the ability to work. And Sylvia, who had already had her world crash in on her once, would be even more on edge. He wished he could offer her some comfort, but there was none to be given. Even now he sometimes worried that everything he had would disappear in the space of a blink.

Just to be sure, he squeezed his eyes shut and counted to ten.

“Fitz.”

“Shh,” he said without opening his eyes, “I’m performing an experiment.”

She quieted until he reached fifty, at which point she asked in a stage whisper, “can’t I be informed of your methodology?”

“Shh.”

Huffing, she subsided again. He made another twenty before the springs of the sofa squeaked and her hand left his. Suddenly panicked, he flung his eyes open. It was only a game, of course, but what if—

But Jemma was only a few inches away, her hands stalled somewhere between her chest and his, her eyes alight with merry bemusement. “Darling, what in heaven’s name were you about? Your face was all screwed up like you expected something to hurt you.”

“I almost did,” he said, grasping her elbows to pull her closer. “Thank God you’re here to prove me wrong.”

Her pleased-with-herself smile spread across her face. “Oh, well, I’ll be here the rest of our lives to do so, whenever you feel like being wrong. I _do_ have one more degree, after all.”

“No need to be smug,” he protested, and pulled her the rest of the way to kiss the smirk off her face. Moving her hands from his chest to his cheeks, she giggled a little as she sighed into him—triumphantly, he rather thought, though he was kissing her so he wasn’t sure how that counted as a loss for him. He shifted to change the angle, adjusting the placement of his hands and fleetingly considering if he ought to remind her that his mother wasn’t due back from her meeting for an hour at least. Only, her fingers were lazy and her lips content to be kissed, rather than respond. He recognized the signs and pulled away far enough to meet her eyes. “Jemma? What’re you thinking about?”

Gaze glazed, she stroked his stubble idly. “I was thinking about Lady Hermione.”

He jerked back, slightly affronted. “What? Why would you be—what does she—what?”

Forehead drawn together, she answered his question as only she could: with a non sequitur. “She’s really our best opportunity, I think. Think about it, Fitz: we need someone who knows the family but isn’t too concerned with niceties to give us all the gossip.”

“The investigation,” he said, his forehead matching hers, “you’re thinking about the investigation. Should I be insulted?”

She rolled her eyes. “Fitz, you know I think about more than one thing at a time. _All_ the time, darling. But Lady Hermione. Aren’t I right?”

He bit back his automatic response to give her suggestion the consideration she deserved. It made sense, he supposed. Official channels would only provide them the bare minimum of information, and if the motive for murder was obvious enough to be in the papers or will the police would have already made inquiries. That assumed, of course, that Daphne was correct in her assertion that her father’s death wasn’t simply an unfortunate accident. But they had begun the whole investigation on that premise, anyway. “You know her better than I do,” he said slowly, “but aren’t you concerned that she’ll be more likely to give us scandal than fact?”

Jemma tipped her head from side to side like a gauge not sure where to land. “One couldn’t take it as gospel, but it would provide lines of inquiry we sorely lack. At present, we don’t even know where to begin.”

“That’s true.”

“And Lady Hermione isn’t mean-spirited. I don’t think she’d tell us things just for the story; she’s rather perceptive, and she doesn’t need the notoriety of starting a vicious rumour. Honestly, Fitz, I’m not sure who else to ask.”

“And we have to know if we’re ever to get anywhere.” He pulled at his ear and nodded. “No, you’re right. And she can tell us what happened while we were upstairs, with the police and the family and all.”

“So it’s decided then. I’ll ring her later—for Thursday?”

At his second nod, she gave a satisfied _hmph_. Then, quick as a flash, her hands were on his neck and her mouth was on his, warm and eager and decidedly not distracted. He instinctively gripped her sides to balance her and pulled back just enough to ensure that he couldn’t bite her by accident. “Oh, now you’ve decided I’m worthy of attention?”

“Well, now we’ve got that out of the way,” she murmured, pausing between every other word to drop a kiss somewhere on his face, “we can proceed to the next most pressing matter of business. Your mother _will_ be back in an hour or so.”

Hauling her into his lap, he could find no objection to her agenda.

 

* * *

 

 

Lady Hermione, according to Jemma, couldn’t be more delighted to meet with Mr. and Mrs. Fitz-Simmons—so delighted, in fact, that she refused Jemma’s initial suggestion of lunch someplace to invite both of them to dine at her house on Thursday night. Not looking forward to wearing his dinner jacket, Fitz made a fuss about it until Jemma showed off what _she_ would be wearing, at which point he shut up with an audible snap of his jaw. “Lady Hermione does appreciate the backless modes,” he said sagely, sitting with his hands sandwiched between his legs and the down comforter so as not to muss her careful toilette.

Jemma spritzed her perfume onto her wrists and rubbed them together before touching them to her neck behind her ears. “They are lovely, aren’t they? Such a good showcase for the spine. But they’re rather wasted on women, I think; we haven’t got any of those marvelous back muscles your sex displays.”

He quickly pushed away the mental image her words suggested—rather too near memories of bathing at public school—and concentrated on the notebook in his hand while sneaking glances at the expanse of freckled alabaster perfection on display before him. He was only a man, after all. “Of our list, I think our priority ought to be any information we can get about Larry.”

“Agreed,” she said, putting in a pair of sparkly earrings. “He’s the x in our equation—well, the x, in addition to the y, z, a, and a squared. But he’s unsolvable with the information we have.”

Her metaphors were always ridiculous, and he always loved them. A smile twisted one side of his mouth. “Larry first, then. After him, Mr. Evans? We don’t know a great deal about him either, and a son-in-law might have less scruple in bludgeoning his wife’s parents than a son his own.”

“Would you bludgeon my parents, Fitz?” Her eyes in the mirror danced, forestalling his panicked denial. Instead, he leaned nonchalantly back on his elbows.

“Oh, you know. For the right price.”

“Like an emerald necklace worth over ten thousand pounds?”

“No,” he said, shaking his head, “because you would never speak to me again, and that’s worth infinitely more than ten thousand pounds.”

“Good.”

“Larry, Budgie, the relationship between the Osbournes and their children—”

“I think we’d better ask about that night before we get into that.”

“I’m only making the list of priorities.”

“I realize that, but what happened that evening—”

“No, Simmons, the interplay is more important—”

“Than possibly someone coming suspiciously downstairs at just the right time? Fitz—”

A knock at the door cut through their babble, and Jean’s voice floated in timidly. “The car’s here, lambs. Shall I tell him you’ll be a few minutes?”

“No!” they called in unison, getting to their feet and gathering their effects. _We’ll finish this later_ , Jemma warned him as she accepted his mother’s affectionate compliments. _I will make you see the error of your ways._

_I have no doubt._

Her eyes flickered up and down. _And you are exceedingly handsome._

He could feel a flush creeping up his neck, but he merely offered her his elbow and ushered her out to the car.

Upon further discussion at a volume that made their driver wince, they agreed that prioritizing was irrelevant in the wider scheme and far more important than solid information was the subtlety Iris heavily requested. Jemma’s trust in Lady Hermione’s information couldn’t be shaken, but trust in her discretion only went so far—about as far as she could throw the woman. As it happened, however, their heated bickering was moot. Barely halfway down her first glass of wine, Lady Hermione leaned forward with gleaming eyes and said “You’ve come to ask me about the Osbournes. Took you long enough!”

Fitz stared like a rabbit and stammered, as he usually did when taken by surprise; Jemma laughed, high and tight and entirely unconvincing even to her own ears. “Lady Hermione, why would we? That’s ridiculous.”

“No,” the old woman said firmly, “you’re looking into it, which I think is marvelous, and you’ve finally worked your way around to speaking to me.”

Fitz glanced across the table. _Any use denying it?_

 _None at all_. With a dramatic sigh, Jemma turned to Lady Hermione. “Oh, all right. You’ve caught us out. But we haven’t been slighting you; we only just began inquiries.”

“Iris? No, Daphne.”

“Both, actually,” Fitz said.

“Boooth?” Lady Hermione drew out the word, her faint eyebrows rising, and she smacked her lips gleefully. “Well, well. I wouldn’t have expected it of Iris.”

“Why not?” they asked at the same time.

She took a delicate sip of soup, shrugging lightly. “Dear Iris. She came into the world exactly nine months from conception—”

Fitz choked a little. Though unable to help a smirk at his prudery, Jemma found herself more intrigued than dismayed: how could Lady Hermione know with such certainty? Entirely ignoring their reactions, Lady Hermione continued. “Her socks were always tight and clean and her hat wouldn’t dare go cock-eyed; her cigarette butts are neither more nor less than an inch long. And you know why this is?” They shook their heads in unison. “Because Iris wouldn’t allow it. She lives her life toeing the line of What’s Done. It’s terribly amusing.”

Fitz ran his finger around the edge of his plate, cheeks still furiously red. “Well, not actually an inch. The margin of error might be within forgivable—”

“It’s the principle of the thing, Fitz,” Jemma said, rolling her eyes. Sometimes she found his inability to think figuratively charming, but sometimes it was simply annoying. “Anyway, it’s just what we said earlier—she likes to do things according to the established patterns.”

“That husband?” Fitz couldn’t keep the incredulity out of his voice, no doubt thinking of the foolishly frilled man in the newspaper picture. Jemma had to agree. At the party, Budgie Evans had contributed nothing to the conversation, superficial as it was, and seemed primarily interested in having a full glass in his hand at all times. His laugh rang out raucously at things that weren’t even amusing, and his florid face would rival a stoplight. He didn’t _fit_ with ice queen Iris. Searching for a more delicate way to agree, she spoke carefully. “I met him that night, just briefly. He seemed. . .well, I wouldn’t have expected Iris to be fond of someone like that.”

“ _Is_ she fond of him?” Fitz asked. “Anyone could put up a front for a party. We do it all the time. Well, er, opposite, but—”

“Oh, no,” Lady Hermione said, “you don’t at all. As it happens, Iris and Budgie don’t either. He’s the one misstep Iris ever took.”

“Misstep?” she asked, half-muffling her question behind her napkin for camouflage.

“Well, yes.” Gesturing her butler to remove the soup plates, Lady Hermione folded her hands in front of her. “As Jemma says, he _seems_. There’s nothing wrong with him that a firm hand on the reins can’t manage, but he rather gives off the air of being a scrubbed-up character from a Hogarth painting, and who wants that to be part of their family? Stafford and Augusta couldn’t really object, of course, because he’s perfectly respectable, but it’s made things much less serene than they could have been.” Her eyes twinkled. “Marvelous for Iris, though. Otherwise she would have become a China doll.”

After trying to recall if Hogarth was the painter with the gin or the one with Henry VIII, Jemma decided it didn’t matter and continued to the more pressing question: why, then, would Iris care for him? Love, she knew, was not always sensible, but someone like Iris seemed unlikely to allow herself to fall victim to Cupid’s arrow. One needed _reasons_ to give one’s heart away. Even her love for Fitz, all-encompassing and miraculous as it was, had a reasonable basis: his kindness, his goodness, his brilliance, and the way they fit with each other like the interlocking teeth of a zipper. Could Iris have a similar experience with a man called, of all things, _Budgie_?

Fitz, who had only visited the National Gallery once under duress, concentrated on the second part of Lady Hermione’s assessment. “When you say less serene, do you mean—that is, has there been anything—” He broke off as the footman set a whole squab in front of him. Lady Hermione laughed.

“No need for discretion, Mr. Fitz-Simmons, what Dobbs doesn’t know isn’t worth knowing. There’s never been anything proved, or anything that’s really even stuck. Money hushes up a good deal, of course, and then Iris’s manner discourages speculation. He may be a trifle indiscreet, have largish debts of honour every now and again, but it can’t be anything too dreadful or the Evans and the Osbournes wouldn’t be on quite good terms.”

Fitz flicked his gaze to Jemma, who tucked that away to record later. “Why do you say that?” she asked, already guessing at the answer.

“Because of Larry, naturally.” Lady Hermione wrenched a leg off the squab with her bare hands before delicately tearing into its flesh.

“But he and his mother are on good terms?” Jemma prodded.

The old woman nodded, mouth full. Swallowing, she followed her bite with a long swig of wine. “Eat, my dear Jemma, you haven’t got enough meat on your bones to keep a bird alive.”

“That’s what I’m always telling her!” Fitz said, triumphant.

She took an obedient bite, but asked the question again with her eyebrows. Taking the opportunity to pull the bird to bits, Lady Hermione obliged them. “That’s the way of it, always has been, but more since the row. I suppose you’ve heard what it was about?”

Fitz shook his head. Jemma suggested hesitantly, “something he wanted to do that Mr. Osbourne didn’t like, I expect?”

Disappointment settled into the creases of Lady Hermione’s face. “Bother, I was hoping you knew. The truth is no one knows what the row was about, only that there was one and that Larry left the house and disappeared off the face of the earth.”

“No, really?” Fitz asked, concentrating on the perfect ratio of squab to greens so he couldn’t actually taste the vegetables, “so he wasn’t at the benefit, then?”

Oh, he was clever, Jemma thought with pride and not a little marveling, look at him smoothly moving to yet another of their lines of inquiry without so much as a blink. Despite her awe, she frowned at him as she deliberately loaded her fork with nothing but swiss chard. “That would explain why we couldn’t find him.”

“Oh, he was there,” Lady Hermione said, “I found him before the girls, actually. Good thing, too. Daffy needed him; she’s always been a bit of a pet of his.”

Larry was Mrs. Osbourne’s pet; Daphne was Larry’s pet; Larry was on the outs with Mr. Osbourne; Daphne wept for her father and went behind her mother’s back to investigate his murder. Jemma felt her face pinching together and immediately brought her napkin to her face as she smoothed it out again. Across the table, Fitz disguised his thoughtfulness as picking the tiny breastbones from his squab. “She’s very emotional, isn’t she? She must have taken the news hard.”

“Yes.” For a second, a shadow crossed Lady Hermione’s face. “Luckily I had both Larry and Iris with me. They were horrified, of course, but managed to keep themselves together for her sake.”

Horrified, Jemma thought, but perhaps not surprised? It would be worth investigating further, if they were ever allowed access to the family.

“Were they together, then?” Fitz gave a little cry of triumph as he pulled a particularly tiny bone out.

“Iris and Larry? No. No, they couldn’t have been farther apart if they hated each other. Iris was speaking to the musicians, Larry was standing by himself in the corner, and Daphne was in one of the rooms off the hall with a man.”

“A man?” Jemma raised her eyebrows. “Anyone worth noting?”

Lady Hermione laughed. “Oh, no. You never pay attention to Daphne’s men; they’re like chaff the wind blows away. Anyway, they were only admiring a truly wretched vase.”

“She threw it herself,” Jemma said.

“Hmm.” Clearing thinking that the less said about Daphne’s attempts at ceramics the better, Lady Hermione returned to a previous subject. “Really, they didn’t tell you what the row was about? It must be the best-kept secret in the city. Whitehall’s war plans aren’t this classified.”

Seeing her husband squirm a little in his seat, Jemma spoke quickly. “But Larry’s old enough to be independent of his father if he likes, isn’t he? We have only a very broad idea of it.”

“Yes, he must be over thirty.”

“Two years older than Iris and Sylvia,” she said aloud, and Fitz’s eyes flashed acknowledgement.

“Is that Sylvia Forbes? Such a nice girl. To answer your question more fully, I don’t know how his financial situation shakes out. And however it was before it’ll be different now, with the will. A decent reason for murder, if you ask me—no offense meant, Mr. Fitz-Simmons.”

“None taken,” he said, “but do you think it likely Larry did the murder?”

The flat-out question took Jemma by surprise; so much, she thought ruefully, for subtlety. But Lady Hermione took it in stride, not even pausing to consider her answer. “He might have killed his father, but I’d be surprised if he hit his mother. If I had to guess, I would say Daphne, but she was with that man. I can’t see Iris doing it at all.”

“What about Budgie?” Fitz asked at the same time she said, “Why Daphne?”

Lady Hermione’s face crinkled. “Perhaps, and because she might do it in a fit of passion. That happens all the time.”

“In novels,” Jemma said with a laugh. Fitz smiled with both sides of his mouth, about as close as he ever came to laughing in public.

But Lady Hermione shook her head soberly. “In real life, too. When you’ve lived as long as I have you’ll learn that there’s only one thing that matters, really, and that’s what we love. At the root of a person is something more important to them than anything else and _anything_ not that is at risk, if it comes in opposition. If you’re very lucky, you never have to face the choice.”

And then she tucked back into her meal, leaving a humid, heavy atmosphere Jemma could feel weighing on her chest. Unlike most of Lady Hermione’s conversation, this had significance, almost literal matter; she couldn’t brush it off or move quickly past. For the first time in all her years of knowing Lady Hermione, Jemma remembered their hostess had lived through two wars and four husbands. She met Fitz’s eyes across the table. Wide and dark, they reflected her own heart. _You feel it too._

_What is it?_

_I don’t know_.

“Goodness, that’s disconcerting.” Their heads snapped to Lady Hermione, now observing them amusedly over an empty plate. “Watching you I almost believe in mind-reading. There’s no need to be so serious. As I told Mr. Fitz-Simmons before, tomorrow’s troubles shouldn’t keep us from enjoying tonight. I’ve ordered something decadent for pudding. You look like the sort of man who’s fond of chocolate, Mr. Fitz-Simmons.”

“I do love decadent desserts,” he admitted, voice slightly shaky. “I do not love discussing murder over them.”

“Then we won’t,” Lady Hermione said firmly. “I hear you play a rather good jazz piano. Perhaps you’ll pay me for my information with a performance.”

“He’s marvelous,” Jemma said loyally, still trying to breathe under the weight. “But perhaps not as good without Mack to keep him in time.”

He made a face at her, timbre jumping several keys as he protested. “Don’t listen to her, Lady Hermione. If my wife was in charge we’d still be listening to Gregorian chants.”

“Fitting for an old lady like me.”

They all laughed and the air shivered around them, growing lighter with the advent of dessert and lighter still as Fitz drove the heavy clouds away with his music. But as they waved good night to Lady Hermione, thanking her for the meal and the information and the good time, Jemma felt the words settle on her shoulders like a mantle. Examining Fitz’s profile in the flashing streetlights as the car sped through the night, she put her heart on a scale and weighed him in the balance: her career, her parents, her country, her morals. Nothing, she realized with a shiver, came close.

Feeling her shake, he turned and put his arm around her shoulders. “Cold?”

 _No_ , she meant to say, but it wouldn’t come. Saying it made it too real, too much; even to him, even alone in the safety of their car, she couldn’t verbalize the truth that he was more than all the world to her. “Yes,” she said with a smile instead. “You know these backless frocks are useless for maintaining body heat.”

His answering smile slanted her direction. “I might know a solution for that problem.”

“Yes,” she said demurely, “I’m sure you do.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If I'm productive this weekend you may get another chapter on Monday, but my guess is the next chapter won't appear until next Friday. I'm sorry I can't be more prolific or consistent! These long chapters are kicking my rear.


	8. Old Places, Old Faces

Since the advent of his sudden celebrity, nights when the Black Silk Trio played at Lola were some of the club’s most popular. Their rarity only exacerbated the crush. Every time, Fitz worried about the fire code and thanked his lucky stars that Jemma was allowed in the back way, or her perpetual lateness would have kept her from getting in at all. That Friday was no exception: quarter ‘til nine, and there wasn’t a seat available; the dance floor was packed like sardines in a tin and just as salty with the smell of sweat. Smoky, too, he thought, coughing, and inadvertently looked for Jemma to ensure she was above the haze. From her place at the bar, she gave him an eyeroll and a fond smile. _Like a lot of herrings_ , he could almost hear her saying.

Fitz darted into the space Mack left as he made his way to the stage, grumbling mostly under his breath. “Can’t even get a breath of air—what good is dancing when lifting your feet loses your place—”

“It’ll clear out by the end of the night,” Mack said easily. “Always does.”

Behind them, Trip laughed, the bright flash of his teeth clearing a path through the crowd like Moses at the Red Sea. “Your dancing might improve if you’re forced to pick up your feet a little more. I don’t know how your girl stands it.”

Fitz would have glared, but he knew from experience that Trip was impervious to bad temper. And, in truth, his heart wasn’t in it. After a long day at the office putting out administrative fires far from a lab, the prospect of an evening of jazz and Jemma seemed like water in a desert, no matter how many people he had to share it with. He took the steps two at a time and settled himself at the piano quickly, eager to begin. Hitting the microphone with his little finger, Trip greeted the crowd with his usual warmth as he raised his trumpet. “Good evening, everybody! Let’s get started with one of our favorite pieces: how about Venice Morning?”

Clapping burst from the crowd as Mack counted out the beat and they swung into one of their most popular pieces. Over the undulating throng, Fitz caught Jemma’s eye and winked. She raised her glass in silent tribute. Only they knew where exactly he had got the idea for that piece.

As always, once he began playing the time flew as fast as his fingers. Before he knew it, Trip was closing out the set to welcome the act that followed them, smacking Fitz on the back as the three left the stage. “I’ve got a date, you’ve got a standing date—one of these days we’re going to get Mack a date.”

“I have one,” Mack rumbled, “with a real beauty of an engine. Can’t wait to get my hands on it.”

Laughing, Trip bid them both a good night before shucking off towards the back door. Fitz turned to Mack and shouted so the near-giant would be able to hear him over the cacophony of the new band. “Come have a drink with Jemma and me before you go.”

Mack shook his shining head. “Nah, thanks. I know the two of you have plans.”

“Nothing that can’t wait,” he protested.

“She’s been dancing in place all night,” Mack said, tolerantly amused. “Go dance with your pretty wife before she has my head for keeping you. Though why she prefers _you_ as a dancing partner. . .“

Fitz scowled, no heat behind it, and said goodbye. Making his way to the bar, he was actually a bit surprised not to run into Jemma. Normally when he played her impatience drove her to the floor before he could reach her, bearing with her a glass of water and well-meant if clumsy compliments. He never cared, honestly, though he grumbled every time she grabbed his hand and pulled him into the gyrating mob. The resulting eyeroll usually put him in a good enough mood to not mind making a fool of himself.

He located her with ease, despite the crowd at the bar. Perched on a high stool with her back to him, she had her one permitted cocktail in hand and leaned casually against the marble countertop, speaking to someone he couldn’t see. A scotch sat beside her. Scotch? he wondered, so no dancing then? Or just not yet? Snagging the drink, he ghosted the tips of his fingers against her back as he moved around her, ready to greet whoever would shortly be suffering the loss of her company. The words died on his lips almost instantly.

Jemma glanced up at him, a broad and false smile plastered across her face. “Darling, you remember Dot, don’t you?”

“Hard to forget,” he stammered dazedly, shaking Dot’s jeweled claw by instinct rather than manners. It would be odd if he didn’t remember a fellow companion of the weekend that changed his life, particularly when her words were technically responsible for his present happiness. “How’ve you been, Miss Huntington-Smith?”

Her shrewd eyes glinted through the smoke rising from her cigarette, even in the dim bar lights. “Tolerably well, Mr. Fitz—oh, it’s Mr. Fitz-Simmons, isn’t it? How _modern_.”

As Dot herself had a hyphenated name Fitz couldn’t quite understand her point, but he pretended a polite smile and inched closer to Jemma. Surreptitiously brushing their elbows together, she said brightly, “Dot’s just been telling me about a girl we knew who joined a nudist colony.”

“What?” he gasped.

“You know I’ve always said she can be trusted to know everything about everyone.”

A generous interpretation of her opinion, Fitz rather thought, until a swift kick against his shin brought his attention to Jemma’s eyes. She fixed him with an eloquent look. _The gossip,_ she said, _Dot knows the gossip._

Understanding dawned. _That_ explained the scotch and the tense lines of her back. Taking a casual sip, he pretended alarm. “Makes me worry what she knows about us. Fortunately, we never do anything interesting.”

“Quite,” Jemma agreed, “work, and that’s the entirety of our activity.”

Dot slammed her glass on the counter and raised her eyebrows, somehow managing to call for another drink with one while exuding skepticism with the other. “And that little project you’ve got going. Don’t forget that.”

Fitz suffered a brief, blinding moment of suffocation before realizing that Jemma would never tell anyone about the Project, never mind a notorious gossip like Dot, so that couldn’t be what she meant. Confusion replaced panic. Anything else they were doing could be classified as work—except—

“Well, it’s only natural, isn’t it, we are _married_ , after all, it’s often the next step—”

Horror replaced both confusion and panic as the meaning of Jemma’s babble filtered into focus. Oh, lord, she was scrambling to cover up the Project and making it worse. Why had she even—they were most certainly _not_ working on that kind of project, at her insistence, mind, at the very least until she had her doctorate— But that was neither here nor there, as Jemma explained how much his mother was looking forward to having a grandchild and Dot’s rising glee took on solar brightness. “Simmons!”

She stopped mid-sentence, mouth uncouthly open.

“Dot doesn’t mean _that_ ,” he said, imbuing the pronoun with every bit of significance he could. “She’s talking about the Osbournes.”

“The Osbournes?” Jemma repeated, too flustered to comprehend, then “oh, the Osbournes! Of course.” She turned to Dot, a dignified mask falling over her face. “How did you know about that?”

How did she imagine Dot would know about their procreative activities? he groaned inwardly, and from Jemma’s pink ears the question had already occurred to her. Dot took a long sip of her g-and-t, looking rather as though it was cream and she the proverbial cat. “The same way everyone does, of course.”

“The papers?” he asked, playing dumb.

Dot gave that suggestion the respect it deserved, taking a dismissive drag on her cigarette and blowing out the smoke in a slow stream. “Daphne, naturally. All anyone’s heard from her for the last week is how you two are investigating her father’s murder. We thought she’d be past it by now.”

“Past her father’s murder?” Jemma asked incredulously, echoing his own thoughts.

“Well, yes,” Dot said coolly, looking between them. Their faces must have been something to behold, because she laughed helplessly as one does at a precocious child. “Will you two _ever_ grow up? You can move past anything in a week. Particularly if you’re like Daffy Osbourne—the slightest thing can and does set her on an entirely new track. Last week ceramics, this week justice for her father, next week becoming a nun. She’s like one of those horribly enthusiastic, horribly flighty dogs that live on country estates.” She inhaled thoughtfully. “Actually, I think she’s already considered the convent. Sister Bernadette, I think she meant to be, or was it Cecilia? Anyway, it was just after Larry drowned.”

“Drowned!” Jemma burst out.

Fitz threw up his hands. “Is he actually alive or is he merely a figment of everyone’s imagination?”

“He may as well be a figment of your imagination now,” Dot said petulantly, “after that—”

“When was that?”

“How did he drown?”

With all the weariness of the ages, she sighed heavily. “Oh, I can’t recall exactly. Last summer, I think. He was fooling about on Weskit Fletcher’s yacht and got hit with a boom or something—are booms on boats?”

Jemma shrugged. Fitz nodded, opening his mouth to explain, but Dot waved him off.

“Went over the edge, anyway, completely limp, and only Weskit and that idiot Charlie Thicke to save him, far more than three sheets to the wind and unable to lay a hand on a life preserver—that would have been the end of old Larry, if he hadn’t been saved by, of all things—guess.”

“A grizzled fisherman?” Fitz suggested.

“A gay divorcee?” Jemma tried.

Dot’s eyes danced. “A parson, if you please, a proper collar-wearing cleric. Jumped off the dock and pulled Larry out with his own two hands. Quite a splash it made. I’m surprised you didn’t see it in the papers.”

“We’ve been rather busy,” Jemma said with dignity, rubbing her wedding ring with her thumb.

If Dot noticed, she didn’t think it was worth commenting on. “Anyway, after that Larry got sober as a judge—dried up like a mummy, stood in the corner glowering like what’s-his-name’s ghost, missed that glorious party where Emerald Larrabee fell into the Spencers’s grandmother’s Grecian urn—and we’ve hardly seen hide or hair of him since.”

Before or after the row with his father, Fitz wondered, about to ask before Jemma beat him to the punch. “We’ve heard there was a rather bad row with Mr. Osbourne—could his sudden disappearance have anything to do with that?”

“Lord, I don’t know.” Dot glowered, throwing back the last of her drink. Fitz bit back a smile. Obviously, she didn’t enjoy ignorance. “I’ve heard any number of things: he married an unacceptable girl and was disinherited; he wrote cheques and signed the wrong name—”

“Was he in financial straits?” Jemma jumped in.

“In the way everyone is—well, not you stained-glass saints, but the rest of us. Of course, I’ve also heard he spoke disrespectfully of his mother and Osbourne went bananas. Nothing’s firm and nothing’s more likely than anything else, as far as I can tell. Larry was never the Bright Young Thing of yore, even before he got dull.”

None of those things, Fitz thought, seemed very likely. If Larry had been rude about his mother, he would hardly retain his place as her pet. The first two suggestions were even more unbelievable, knowing what they did about Stafford Osbourne’s will—but the common root sparked an idea in the back of his mind. Letting it grind along into something useful, he tried another tack. “Our impression of Daphne was that she’s not overly careful with what she makes public knowledge. If they quarreled last year, as Lady Hermione said, it’s hard to believe that she hasn’t let anything slip in all that time.”

“It is rather.” Dot stared into the middle distance, apparently considering, then shrugged and jabbed her cigarette into a nearby ashtray. “I tell you what’s more surprising, and that’s that Budgie hasn’t spilt the beans. He must not know. They keep him on a pretty short leash.”

“Why?” Jemma asked.

“Oh, it’s necessary, darling! Not overburdened with brains, is Budgie. He gets himself into trouble if left to his own devices.”

Fitz felt Jemma still beside him. “What kind of trouble?”

Dot waved a hand casually. “The usual—fast cars, indiscretions, notes belonging to a variety of nice men in the City. From what I understand there was very nearly a bit of unpleasantness last year over a debt of honour, but it fizzled out somehow. It’s so lovely to have connections, isn’t it?”

Another lump of coal on his subconscious fire. Jemma leaned forward, pitching her voice downwards. “Are you suggesting the Osbournes—”

“Well,” Dot said, hopping off her stool, “who else? Budgie certainly hasn’t two pennies to rub together. Everything’s Iris’s, and all that comes from her parents originally—he’s essentially a kept man. Good thing he hasn’t any dignity to stand on.” She settled her frock, standing on her toes to wave at someone in the crowd. “Well, I’m off. Now your group is done playing, there’s no point to be here. We’re going to Hell; would you like to come?”

“Er, no,” Fitz stammered, “not for—not at all, actually—”

Jemma placed her hand on his arm comfortingly. “We’re fine here, thank you.”

“Suit yourself.” Dot winked. “Charming to see you both, must do it again soon, et cetera. Do feel free to look me up if you need anymore information.”

As soon as she left, Fitz collapsed into her vacated seat, bone-tired. “She’s exhausting to speak to.”

“And I had to suffer her even longer than you did!” Jemma said indignantly. “If only she wasn’t potentially so useful. I think we learned a good bit, though, don’t you? It was very nearly worth it.”

“And gave a good bit too,” he said, grimacing. “Now she has all sorts of information about the investigation that she can spread about indiscriminately, not to mention—Jemma, why in the world—”

“Ugh, Fitz!” Burying her face in her hands, she emitted a muffled, wordless groan and spoke without looking up. “I don’t know what came over me. I didn’t even realize what I was saying until I was in the middle of it. I’m sorry, sweetheart—”

“No, no,” he said, “it’s fine, only I didn’t know if—” He stopped, feeling himself flush. It wouldn’t do to think too much about why that had been the first thing to come to her mind and mouth. Not at present, with everything else going on. Clearing his throat, he tossed back the last dregs of his scotch and started over. “If you would be comfortable with that kind of talk going on. I know how ladies can be about that kind of thing—they’ll never give you any peace.”

She took her hands away from her face and sighed. “Honestly, Fitz, that kind of talk is likely already going on. When two people—well, because you and I—that is—” He propped his cheek against his fist, nodding soberly as she tried to finish a sentence. Looking up at him, she made a face and said “ugh” again. “You know what I mean.”

“I do.” When two people defied the expectation of mere casual affection, naturally there would be speculation. Gossip was as certain as death and taxes. Which reminded him— Taking pity on her, he tapped his finger gently against her hand. “I have an idea for how to proceed. With the investigation, I mean.”

She visibly relaxed, turning her hand to fist around his finger. “Marvelous. Tell it to me on the floor.”

Apart from his customary groan, he followed her without complaint. As Mack predicted, the floor had emptied as everyone decamped for greener pastures—including, apparently, Hell. “Jemma,” he began as they fell into the basic step he could finally manage to do at the same time as speak, “Dot said she was going to—”

“It’s a club,” Jemma smiled up at him, “all the rage now, as these things go. Full of drugs, from what I understand, and worse. You would hate it. What’s your idea?”

“What? Oh, the idea!” He pulled her in to spin her out, practicing an underarm twirl. It went off almost perfectly this time, and her giggle made him not mind the slight bobble. “I think we should give a dinner party.”

She pulled her head back, both her eyebrows high. “You mean, invite people for dinner. At our house. Where we shall have to host and not sneak away?”

When she put it so baldly, it did seem rather daunting. Gulping a little, he nodded as resolutely as he could manage. “But just a little one. It seems to me that our murder motives, such as they are, are all tied to money—the will, or money someone needs, or money someone needed, perhaps.”

She nodded. “All right. I agree, such as they are. So?”

“I’d like to invite Mr. Biggs for dinner, so we can ask him about the will.”

“Fitz,” she laughed, “Mr. Biggs isn’t a dinner party. We’d hardly have to order a larger roast for him. Does he even eat roast?”

“No,” he said, “just vegetables and oysters, but not just Mr. Biggs. I’d like to invite Aaron, too. He works in the City. I think he’ll be helpful tracking stocks and such.”

He expected another easy agreement, and so was surprised when her step stuttered and her forehead wrinkled as she looked up at him. “Aaron who?”

“Aaron Klein,” he said, equally confused, “my friend from Winchester?”

“I didn’t know you had any friends from Winchester.”

He stopped dancing entirely, dropping her hands to prop his own on his hips. “Simmons, he was the best man at our wedding. How don’t you remember him?”

Jemma pulled her arms around her, trying to recall. Her many fond memories of her wedding day centered around Fitz: his blush during her father’s speech; his difficulty eating with one hand so he didn’t have to let go of hers; his vows ringing out firmly despite the fact that she could feel him trembling; his eyes welling with tears as she came down the aisle. Honing in on this picture, she vaguely remembered a tall man with dark hair that rivaled Fitz’s for curliness. “Perhaps,” she said slowly.

“It doesn’t matter, I suppose.”

He shrugged, still frowning, his lips pushed out childishly. She had inadvertently hurt him, she realized, and bit her lip as she considered how to make it right. Holding out her hand in invitation, she waited until he reluctantly took it. “Fitz,” she said, sidling up to him, “he would have been behind you all day, wouldn’t he? You can hardly blame me for not noticing him, when I had you. Do you remember my attendant?”

His mouth slowly uncurled, and his fingers lost their tension. “No.”

“And you have even less excuse,” she said, smiling so he would know she didn’t mean it, “since it was Chumps.”

“Oh. Well.” He cleared his throat to signify he was done with that topic of conversation and pulled her in, returning his hand to the small of her back. “As you said, who could blame me for not remembering her, when you were there looking the fourth-most beautiful you’ve ever been?”

The compliment soaked through her, leaving a trail of gold in its wake as she relaxed into him. The music shifted from quick and bright to slower and languid, in keeping with the late hour. It would be time to go home soon, she thought, and instantly dismissed it. Nights like this didn’t come around often any longer, with all their work; she meant to take advantage of it while she could. First, though, there was business to settle. “Fitz?”

His response rumbled in his chest. “Mmm?”

“I’ve agreed to go to the Soviet Club with Sylvia on Monday, but could you do Tuesday? For the dinner, I mean. Or do you need more time?”

“I’ll ask Andrews, but I think so. Mr. Biggs never has engagements.”

“You could call Mr. Klein tomorrow.”

“No,” he said, “he’s Jewish. He won’t come to the phone on Saturday. I think his family disconnects it.”

She shook her head a little, imagining adolescent, lanky, aggressively Scottish Fitz and an equally lanky, curly-haired Jew arrayed against the cruelty of the privileged snobs that populated public schools. She loved them already. Good friends, they must have been, for Fitz to ask him to stand up with him and keep up the connection after all these years. She was sorry she had forgotten, but honestly, how could anyone expect—“Fitz!”

“Yes?” he said, rather with the air of _now what_?

She pulled away just enough to let him see her unimpressed face. “The _fourth_ -most beautiful I’ve ever been? What in heaven’s name beats it?”

He stilled, though his feet kept moving—which, if she had stopped to think about it, she would have been rather pleased with herself about—and sputtered. “Er, well, I didn’t mean, exactly—”

“No, no, you’ve ranked them. I demand to know.”

He had learned early that she would brook no opposition to that tone, so he acquiesced with a small measure of grace. “Okay, well, third is when I didn’t die in the Icehouse, remember?”

She did, having hardly ever found him more beautiful herself. “I shall accept that.”

“Second,” he said, reluctantly, “second, well, second is. Um. Not the wedding, but the next day—the next _morning_ , that is, with the sun and the—”

The sun coming through the open windows of their Venetian hotel, dancing dappled glints on the ceiling and turning to pools of gold in all his corners and making his eyes bluer than the whole world, rising on a new day where they could do _everything_ they wanted, reminding her that her life was newly begun. Ah, yes. She fought the impulse to hide her face in his neck. “All right,” she said, knowing he smirked at how strangled her voice sounded, “what’s the first?”

“Now.”

“Now?” she breathed, and he pulled her inappropriately close to rest his cheek on the top of her head.

“Now. And when we go home, it will be then, and tomorrow morning if I see you, but more likely tomorrow afternoon. It changes, is what I mean.”

Her voice was a laugh more than anything else. “Fitz! How do you always say such perfect things?”

“It’s nothing.”

“Nothing!” Not for the first time, she wondered at him: how he found it so easy to say what he felt; how honest and true he always was; how it was possible for her heart to hold all the love she had without bursting. She could never hope to match him, but she had to try. “Fitz, you’re _magnificent_.”

He choked a little, but his voice when he spoke was light enough she wouldn’t have known if she hadn’t felt the catch in his throat. “No, I’m just better with words than you are. For example, I would never try to put Dot off the Project by talking about, um, procreating.”

“Ugh, Fitz!” she said again, burying her face in his chest. “Don’t speak about it. I’m so embarrassed.” Honestly, she didn’t know why that had been the first thing out of her mouth. She hadn’t been thinking about it. Not really. Only while Fitz was playing, she had pictured him teaching their children, his hands over their tiny fat fingers, and started idly reviewing her family tree to determine if it was possible for her to have a blue-eyed child. Could she help it if Dot had interrupted her in the middle of the process?

“All right, I won’t. But, um, how did you know—or were you just—have you and Mam been talking about it?”

It was her turn for her breath to catch. To her recollection, she had only heard Fitz this hesitant once before: in the hospital, when he had asked her if she had meant it when she said he was _more than that_. She didn’t know a great deal about his childhood—even less than she thought, apparently—but this must have been what he sounded like then. Desire and resignation warred in every word; he wanted something, but had convinced himself he wasn’t likely to have it. But why? she wondered, they had hardly talked about it and certainly she had never said— “No,” she said honestly, “at least, not specifically. But Fitz, I know she’ll be excited. And, when the time’s right, so will I.”

“Really?”

“Really,” she whispered. His hand clenched in the fabric at the small of her back. “My doctorate, you know, can only have my name on it. I’d like to work on something that has both our names together.”

“But we’ve already patented the carbon monoxide—” She made a disapproving huff, and he subsided. “I see what you mean. Well, when you like. I’d, um. I’d like that too.”

“But let’s try and keep it secret, when we do.”

“A classified endeavor,” he said soberly. “Agreed.” Then, mouth unconsciously quirking up, he spun her out and in without putting a foot wrong.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The club called Hell is ruthlessly stolen from a Poirot short story, because ALL the fictional detectives exist in this universe.
> 
> Let me put your minds at ease right now: this will not turn into a pregnancy fic. FitzSimmons has far too much going on to think of such things at the moment. I just couldn't resist Jemma saying the exact WORST thing to the exact WORST person, and then, what, leave the conversation hanging? No indeed.


	9. She's Too Good For Him, and Other Tragedies

“But what does one wear to dine with one’s friend and her fiancé, whom one strongly suspects to be a wart, at an only barely legal gathering?”

Jemma’s ladies’ maid looked at her blankly, eyes wide with alarm. From her spot on Jemma’s rarely-used bed, Jean offered her opinion. “Something dark but not too formal—a step up from office wear, but not obviously so. Smarten it up with your hat.”

Returning to her wardrobe, Jemma removed a neat black frock with a red-flowered tie at the collar and held it up. Jean nodded approval. “You don’t think the red tie is a bit on the nose?” Jemma asked, biting her lip as she considered it.

“Ooh, no, miss, it’ll be lovely,” a relieved Eliza said. “With your cloche, perhaps, and white gloves.”

“But not too white,” Jean added quickly, “or it will draw attention.”

Jemma sighed and nodded, slipping the dress from its hanger and tossing it on the bed. As Eliza came to undo her difficult back buttons, she put her hands on her hips in a replica of Fitz’s preferred stance and made a petulant face at her mother-in-law. “I wish I hadn’t agreed to this. I’m sure to put my foot in it horribly and make everything worse.”

“Not for your friend, surely.”

A pang of guilt struck her smack about the sternum. Poor Sylvia, she thought for what had to be the hundredth time, so worried about everything that she was fretting herself into a nervous breakdown and all she asked for was a bit of moral support as she walked into the lion’s den. Surely Jemma could manage that without too much damage. Her buttons undone, she shrugged out of her lab dress and reached for the black one. “I only want to help, Jean, but I feel woefully inadequate. Fitz would be infinitely better. Or you! You’ve got more. . . “

“Years?” Jean’s mouth twisted into a perfect facsimile of her son’s wry grin.

“Wisdom, I was going to say.” She zipped her dress smoothly up the back and began digging around for her shoes. “But you will meet her, at least?”

“Of course, pet. And this wart-like fiancé of hers, as well.”

Jemma huffed, covering an impolite word. “Oh, he’s not coming. We’re to meet him at Golders Green.”

Jean’s face suddenly furrowed. “By yourselves? At this time of night? It will be nearly half-past eight before you get there.”

Jemma had to quickly stifle a smile. Only Jean would consider that dangerously late, even on the outskirts of London. “We’ll be perfectly safe. It’s only rather rude of him, I think.”

“My son would never do such a thing.”

“True. But your son, as we both know, is as near perfect as a man can be.” The two women laughed fondly as Jean stood and smoothed her skirt.

“I’ll just go down, then, and you come when you’re ready, lamb. There’s no need to rush.”

Jemma nodded and went to sit at her dressing table, dismissing Eliza as soon as they had adjusted her hair to not be ruined by her hat. As she put on her light layer of cosmetics, she gave herself a rousing speech: it was only one evening; she didn’t need to say anything except in Sylvia’s support or defense; despite _her_ concerns, Fitz had gone off to his practice with a brief kiss and absolutely no anxiety whatsoever. If he wasn’t worried, Jemma reasoned, there was no need for her to be either. Still, she couldn’t escape the slight pod of butterflies in her stomach.

Toilette complete, she surveyed herself in the mirror. She looked perfectly ordinary from top to toe, nothing even the most strident revolutionary could object to. Except— Her appraisal caught on her ring. The single sapphire, considered small by society, was still sufficiently large enough to flaunt itself. Perhaps she should take it off. Probably safer that way, too.

But she hadn’t removed it since Fitz put it on last Christmas.

But she could still wear her wedding band; it was plain and wouldn’t draw attention.

But her ring with all its secret significance!

But it was just this once, she told herself firmly, and worked it off her finger with some difficulty. Placing it carefully in her jewelry case, she took a deep breath, squared her shoulders, and started downstairs.

Jean had taken Sylvia into the library to show off Jemma’s birthday gift. “As if three disciplines weren’t enough, they’ve decided to make a hobby of astronomy as well.”

“I expected nothing less,” Sylvia said, trailing her finger from one star to another as she slowly spun the dark blue globe. Then she looked up and smiled warmly. “My gift’s nothing much compared to the universe, but I hope you’ll like it.”

A tin of tea rested on the desk, the blend one Jemma had mentioned as a favorite weeks ago. “Sylvia, you shouldn’t have,” she exclaimed, then, seeing her friend’s face fall, quickly added “but I’m very glad you did. I’d say we should have some now, but we’d be late.”

“Another time,” Jean said comfortably. “Be careful, lambs.”

“What could happen?” Jemma said lightly, gathering up her hat and gloves and ignoring Jean’s suspicious look. Perhaps if she repeated it often enough she could make herself believe it.

The journey might have been a trip to Selfridges for all the trouble it was. No conversation passed between them, either on the walk or the Underground; though Jemma had the overwhelming desire to drown out the never-ending refrain of potential calamities with inane babble, Sylvia had drawn into herself like a tortoise, her hands busily playing with the clasp of her pocketbook as she stared into the pitch-black tunnels beyond the car.

Emerging at Golders Green, Jemma fought to keep her face steady. The dingy light didn’t reach to the corners of the station, casting everything in a slightly seedy glow; an unpleasant odor rose from the rubbish piled on the ground around the bins. Around them, their fellow passengers streamed anonymously away into the dark. Like rats, Jemma thought before chastising herself sternly. No doubt they were perfectly good people. Perfectly good, she repeated, deliberately avoiding the leer of a tall, dark man who actually did have a face like a mustached rat.

Sylvia touched her arm, making her jump. “There’s Mark.”

“Where?” she asked, seeing no one but Ratface.

“There,” Sylvia said, and—to Jemma’s dismay—indicated the man now holding up a lazy, lily-white hand. Her arm, linked with Jemma’s, trembled as she hurried them to where Mark waited by the stairs. “Hullo, darling. It was good of you to fetch us.”

“There was a copper. This is your friend?”

Mark’s voice surprised Jemma. Rather than the weak one that matched his face or an arrogant one to match what she guessed of his character, it rolled out from his chest in cultured, bell-like tones. He sounded, she thought as they shook hands politely, like his first language was ancient Greek. She certainly hadn’t expected that. Nor did she expect the solicitous way he offered each of them an arm, nor the intelligent questions he asked her about her work, nor the light that leapt to Sylvia’s eyes. As they made their way out of the station and down the street, she rapidly qualified all her assumptions. Perhaps her expectations were unreasonably high because Fitz defined wonderful. After all, Sylvia was an intelligent woman, and she loved Mark—he couldn’t be entirely awful.

Mark led them on a labyrinthine path through poorly-lit streets, ending in an alleyway where he knocked on a wooden door and waited until a peephole opened at Jemma’s eyelevel. “Fredrick,” he said, and the door swung open. Stuffing his hands in his pockets, he walked in without a backwards glance.

Jemma darted a glance at Sylvia, uncertain how to proceed. Taking a deep breath, Sylvia gestured to the open door, somehow managing a brave smile despite the fear visible even in the dark. “We did come all this way.”

“Absolutely,” Jemma said firmly, and plunged into the darkness.

Mark waited for them in the narrow, green-papered hallway, tapping his foot impatiently. “We’re already late.”

Sylvia moved forward to take his arm. “Sorry, darling.”

“No matter, just come along.” And he set off at a brisk trot, all but dragging Sylvia and forcing Jemma to practically run after them. And she walked quickly already, as Fitz had complained more than once. The hall stretched nearly three meters before terminating in a thick black curtain, which Mark pushed quickly through. Following hard on his heels, Jemma got caught in the folds of fabric and tumbled into the room beyond.

The room hit her like an express. This must be what birth was like: dark and quiet, then, all of a sudden, light and noise and strange smells and _heat_ , good lord, though she believed newborns were usually cold. The babble in the room was worse than Hall in term time, and she nearly choked on the smoke that hung in the air, making everything vaguely hazy. Ahead of her, Sylvia turned to locate her and said something Jemma couldn’t hear to Mark, who shook his head sharply and continued without stopping.

The large room they were now in appeared to be some sort of library, fully of grimly under-stuffed armchairs clustered around low tables and bookshelves bursting with pamphlets and treatises. Mark didn’t give them a second glance, charging with purpose to a doorway at the far right corner of the room. This led to the dining room, where one long trestle table waited in austere severity. The noise was worse in here, chinks and scrapes of metal on china combining with continued conversation to bounce off the walls in a dull roar. Seating them about halfway down one side of the table, Mark craned around—looking to flag down someone to bring them water, Jemma fervently hoped.

“Have you even got waiters?” she asked when no assistance was forthcoming.

“Of course we do,” Mark snapped, waving at someone on the far side of the room.

Sylvia’s quick headshake carried a warning, so Jemma subsided into silence. As much silence as possible, that was; though her dinner companions might as well have been statues, the conversation around her flew quick and fast at very high volumes. More from self-preservation than anything else, she began listening to the discussion raging beside her—something about whether men or women could better wield power.

“Pardon me,” she put in, finally unable to hold herself back, “but why must one be in power over the other? My husband and I rub along nicely without either holding any sort of authority.”

The man and woman stopped to stare at her, eyes round. Then the woman said, “Vaughn, be a dear and get this woman some dinner. I think I like her.”

Before she knew it, Jemma was waist-deep in a loud and heated debate that had spread from herself, her immediate neighbor, and Vaughn to Sylvia, a second man, and two or three people across the table. Thanking her lucky stars that she had managed to do a bit of research before coming, Jemma listened more than she spoke. She could hold her own on women’s rights, but the flow of conversation rushed from there to access to proper medical attention to the need for a decent living wage almost before she could blink. So quickly did it move, in fact, that the shabby man across the table was pontificating ponderously about someone called Strachey and his blistering critique of MacDonald before she realized that Mark hadn’t contributed a single sentence. Odd, really. This was meant to be his subject, the thing that vied with Sylvia for his affections; she found it curious that he had nothing to contribute.

Sawing away at her grey piece of mutton—Fitz was right, the food was horrible—Jemma observed Mark from the corner of her eye. He sat slumped in his chair, the dark scowl on his face deepening every time he opened his mouth only to close it when someone else jumped in. It made no difference what was said or who said it. If anything, he only grew more thunderous when Sylvia made a point that earned her respectful looks all around. Looking to him for approval, Sylvia saw his frown and choked off her gentle pleasure. Mark didn’t even seem to notice.

Two members of the party started squabbling across the table over something Jemma, having lost the thread of the argument during her observations, couldn’t follow. The woman next to Jemma rolled her eyes. “They’ll never stop now,” she said to Jemma and Sylvia. “Pity, that was quite fun. We got so swept up, I didn’t ask—who did you come with? I don’t recognize your friend.”

A rattle of china and cutlery cut her off as Mark stood sharply. Placing one hand on Sylvia’s shoulder, he growled, “I’m through. Let’s have coffee.”

Sylvia peered up at him. “Mark! May I introduce Miss Battle? She says she hasn’t seen you here before.”

“Pleasure,” he said, deliberately ignoring Miss Battle’s friendly hand. “Let’s _go_ , Sylvia.”

Sylvia stood as he stalked off, raising her hands helplessly. “I’m sorry, Miss Battle. He’s not generally—”

The other woman waved her off. “Don’t fret. I had a fiancé like that myself once.”

Stopping a minute after Sylvia hurried away, Jemma leaned over the back of her chair and lowered her voice. “What happened to him?”

“Decided I didn’t care for him enough to put up with it,” Miss Battle shrugged.

When she found Sylvia and Mark in the first room, three coffees steamed neglected on the table before the couple. Mark held Sylvia’s hands tightly in both of his. “Darling, you mustn’t just _talk_ to people. That woman’s hardly even one of us; she’s just a Party member for fun.”

“Really?” Sylvia asked dryly, subtly trying to loosen his grasp, “because she had some rather strident critiques of Lady Astor’s policies. They were quite well-supported, I thought.”

Hastening to help, Jemma slid into her seat and retrieved her coffee from the table. The tepid liquid felt like dirt and tasted like worse, so she put it down hastily. “Indeed,” she said, choking on the grounds, “my research suggested socialism was more uniform than it sounds from discussion with your comrades.” She paused to congratulate herself on knowing the correct term. “Have I misunderstood?”

He snorted. “That crowd can’t stomach that desperate wrongs require desperate actions. They’ll prattle on and on about overthrowing the aristocracy but when it comes down to it they’re all talk. And what good does that do for the oppressed man or, as you said darling, woman?”

Sylvia flushed a bit. “But surely chaos doesn’t do them any good, either. The powerless are always the worst off when all is said and done.”

“Darling.” He smiled fondly—almost, Jemma thought, condescendingly. “You’re very clever in your field, but it’s not political theory.”

Her smile was tight and devoid of dimple. “Neither is Classics.”

His smile dropped for a second, then solidified. “Er, Sylvia, I wish you’d tell me how to get grease out of my trousers. I know it’s something to do with biology.”

Instantly, her face lit up like a hundred light bulbs. “It’s chemistry, actually,” she laughed, “which is more Jemma’s expertise, but I shall try my best. How did you get grease on your trousers?”

“From a car. I had a job for a few days driving around cars to show them off for prospective buyers.”

Clenching her hands in her lap, Sylvia dared a quick glance at Jemma. Though she wasn’t as adept at reading Sylvia’s looks as she was Fitz’s, Jemma couldn’t misunderstand this one: _perhaps there’s hope_. She gave Sylvia a warm smile in return, wishing with all her heart it was true.

As she watched them, though, she couldn’t avoid the impression that their hopes were doomed to be dashed. Mark listened to Sylvia, it was true, called her _darling_ and _dearest_ and said the right things at the right times. But his eyes roved to and from around the room, stopping hungrily on certain groups, searching others for unknown faces. A few times, Jemma saw him loudly interrupt Sylvia just as a party walked by, following them with his eyes even as he returned to the conversation. What was he waiting for, she wondered? None of the people here appeared to be aware of his very existence. So much for the friends they were meant to meet.

Then, from nowhere, a shadow fell over the party. “Jones,” a soft, sibilant voice managed to hiss, even though there was only one s. Jemma and Sylvia looked up in unison as Mark sprung to his feet. The man stuffed his hands in his pockets. “Who’s this?”

“My fiancée and her friend.”

The man’s eyes flicked over them. Jemma felt a shiver race down her spine. “Charles is coming. He wants to see you.”

“Good.” Mark put his hand back on Sylvia’s shoulder. “I wanted to—”

“Stay here. An hour, maybe.” And then the man turned on his heel and disappeared like a poof of smoke.

An hour? Jemma checked her watch worriedly. It was already much later than she intended to stay; another hour would, with traveling home, land her on her doorstep near midnight. And she was due in Oxford at nine the next morning. Hesitant, she started, “Is this Mr. Charles very important? Only—”

“Very important,” Mark said, “he’s the _most_ important, in fact. We’ll just have to wait.”

Sylvia made apologetic eyes at her. “Just a bit longer, though. Remember we have to go to the office in the morning.”

Mark’s face darkened. “Well, if you must put your commitment to the master class above your commitment to me—”

“It’s not that!” Sylvia raised both hands soothingly. “Darling, I swear, it isn’t.”

The scowl returned, twice as dark as at dinner, and none of Sylvia’s efforts to lift it had any effect whatsoever. In fact, Jemma rather thought they made it worse. Eventually Sylvia stopped trying, concentrating instead on folding and refolding her napkin. Jemma watched the second hand chase the first hand around the clock face and tried not to give into the impulse to check over her shoulder every two seconds. She still felt that man’s gaze upon her—like a fire that burned, if such a thing was possible, or like the tiger in the Zoo as it stalked back and forth in its cage. The people at dinner hadn’t been frightening, at least not any more frightening than idealists always were. This man, she thought, was worse than that. Idealists, by their very nature, had ideals; she wasn’t sure this man had anything more than animal instincts. And if he was just the messenger for this mysterious Charles, Jemma was not at all sure she wanted to meet him.

At two minutes past the hour, she leapt from the chair and planted her feet. “Ugh, what a pity. It appears your friend won’t be coming and I’m afraid I really must go.”

Sylvia did the same, less firmly. Mark remained slouched in the unforgiving seat. “We have to wait. Charles wants to see me.”

Pressing her lips together, Jemma dammed back a sharp retort. If this Charles wanted to see Mark so much, he could do it at decent hours. Sylvia twisted the napkin before tossing it on her seat. “Mark, Jemma’s done me a favor; we mustn’t trespass—”

“She came of her own free will.”

“And I’m going to leave of my own free will,” she said as calmly as she could manage, “if someone will call a car.”

“Cars don’t come here,” Mark sneered. “It’s against the rules.”

“Stop being a beast,” Sylvia said quietly.

Anger shot from his eyes and disappeared just as quickly, covered by tolerant patience. “I’ll take you to the station when we’ve done.”

“And how long will that be?” Sylvia shook her head. “Surely he’ll wait for you to return.”

“You don’t treat Charles like that. We’re staying here.”

To Jemma’s dismay, Sylvia wavered, sucking her bottom lip into her mouth as her gaze darted back and forth between the two of them. “Jemma,” she said, and it was at once a question and a plea.

Jemma set her jaw, stepping forward to take Sylvia’s arm. She had come solely for this reason. She hadn’t anticipated having to protect Sylvia from her own fiancé, but damned if she wouldn’t follow through just the same. “Another night,” she said firmly. “You can introduce Sylvia another night. Now, if you won’t escort us, we’ll find our own way.”

Counting on his chivalry—or, at least, his desire to keep his fiancée from being attacked—Jemma sucked in a startled breath when he shot back, “Suit yourself. It’ll likely be just as long before you find your way out.”

“I was a Girl Guide,” she said, loftily and blatantly lying. “I have an excellent sense of direction.”

He didn’t follow them when they stalked away, though Sylvia kept pausing to look back pleadingly. Jemma refused. A stream of unprintable words ran through her mind, held back only by the strength with which she ground her teeth together; even her desire to spare Sylvia’s feelings paled in comparison to her desire to take Mark by his mustache and slap him hard across the face. How _dare_ he. She would wander around for hours before allowing him a victory.

Happily, though, Mr. Vaughn and Miss Battle met them in the hall and offered to walk with them, eager to pick up the dinner conversation where it had been so awkwardly left off. Mustering up all her conversational powers, Jemma managed to hold her own while watching Sylvia from the corner of her eye. All her spark and verve seemed to have drained away, leaving her friend as pale as a tuberculosis victim and as silent as the grave. She might have been a ghost under the orange streetlights. Jemma cursed Mark again.

Still chattering merrily, their companions followed them onto the Tube and to the first change, “Where,” Mr. Vaughn said, “it’s generally best to get a cab.” He called one for Miss Battle and saw her into it, then hailed another for Sylvia and Jemma. As they waited for it to wend its way through the post-theatre traffic, he extended an invitation for them to come dine again. “Bring that fellow if you must,” he said, “but between us, he might not be someone to associate much with.”

“Why not?” Jemma asked, seeing Mr. Vaughn notice Sylvia’s face blanching even whiter and trying to draw his attention away.

It worked, and he stuffed his hands in his pockets. “Maybe nothing. Only Sansfoy—that’s that frightening chap you were talking to—he’s a bit of an enigma and not quite _quite_ , if you know what I mean. Deals a lot with the radicals that come out of the woodwork at this time of night. It’s good you ladies left when you did or you might have been mixed up in something you’d rather not be.”

Jemma miraculously kept her “oh” from sounding strangled and blessed the cab for choosing exactly that minute to roll up. As Sylvia collapsed into the back seat, she thanked Mr. Vaughn on both their behalves. “But I don’t know whether we’ll come again. It was a favor to him, you see.”

He laid a finger alongside his nose. “A shame for the cause, but probably better for you both. Good night, ladies.”

Bidding him farewell, she slid into the seat and provided both her and Sylvia’s addresses. “Take my friend first,” she directed, “it’s the second one.”

“Right-ho, miss.”

It wasn’t a terribly long ride to Sylvia’s boardinghouse and Jemma rather expected it to pass in silence. It would be better if it did, she thought; she had entirely no confidence in her ability to be diplomatic at this hour of the night with this level of indignation. But they had hardly gone three streets before the lights of an oncoming vehicle glinted off the tear tracks on Sylvia’s cheeks, and her instinctive desire to mend things rushed in. “Oh, Sylvia! I’m so sorry.”

“No, _I’m_ sorry,” Sylvia said, wiping her face with the backs of her hands. “He was so—horrible!”

Jemma couldn’t deny it, but even she knew this was not a time to speak truth. Instead, she dug in her bag for a handkerchief, finding only one of Fitz’s enormous ones. Sylvia accepted it mechanically.

“He’s not usually—well, at least—he hasn’t _always_ been like that.” Jemma murmured comfortingly, but it must have sounded unconvincing because Sylvia shook her head in protest. “When we met, he valued my intelligence—he was so proud of me—he paid attention to what I said. You saw a little tonight. It was always like that, once.”

Jemma pursed her lips. She had not seen anything of the sort this evening. She had seen a selfish, childish man who had a canny knowledge of how to manipulate her friend, and she found it difficult to believe all that had only developed recently. But why, she asked herself, _why_ would Sylvia allow herself to be fooled by it? Folding her hands together, she spoke slowly to give herself time to think. “Sylvia, forgive me—I know this is awfully private—but how long _has_ he been like that?”

As she gazed out the window, Sylvia’s profile could have been a Victorian mourning cameo. “Oh, I don’t know. Longer than I care to admit, perhaps. I thought it was because we were so far apart, but then I came back and it seems to have gotten worse.” She gave a shuddering sigh. “We thought it was for the best. I would work, he would study, we would be married—and now all that’s in pieces I can’t keep hold of no matter how I try.”

Jemma didn’t know how to respond to that, so she said nothing. She understood, now, why Sylvia always looked as though she was in danger of coming to bits. The life she had planned had somehow slipped through her fingers, and she couldn’t stop grasping for it. But it was like the fish in the fountain at Verinder Hall, Jemma thought—try as one might to keep hold, they refused to submit to even the strongest grasp. One could only let them fall back in the pool.

After a minute, Sylvia gave her a watery smile. “I know what you’re thinking, Jemma. You want to know why I keep trying to hold onto the pieces. Why not let them go and be done?”

“I didn’t mean,” Jemma said, turning so Sylvia could see her face in the glow of the streetlights, trying to let her see her deep regret, “that you should—only, I don’t understand, when he makes you so unhappy—”

“You do understand,” Sylvia interrupted, “because you have Mr. Fitz-Simmons.”

“Oh, but Fitz—”

“—is nothing like Mark, I know.” The smile became a humorless laugh. “We aren’t all as lucky as you are, Jemma. I rather think no one else ever can be as lucky as you are. I didn’t mean that. I meant you would never be happy without him, no matter how unhappy you were with him, because you love him more than anything else in the world. That’s how it is with Mark and me. At least—” her voice grew very quiet. “That’s how it is with me.”

Jemma blinked rapidly, trying to keep her own tears at bay. So Mark was a rotter of the worst sort—well, most men were rotters of one sort or another, and Sylvia loved him despite it. More than anything else in the world, she repeated, and while she didn’t understand how anyone could feel that way about Mark Jones, neither could she find it within herself to censure Sylvia for fighting to be with him. What wouldn’t she do, after all, to keep Fitz?

“I just think,” Sylvia said, almost in a whisper, “I can’t _help_ thinking that if I fight hard enough, he’ll come back to himself and to me. But I’m sorry for dragging you into this mess. It was more than I should have asked.”

She reached out one had to grip her friend’s. Sylvia was wrong, Jemma knew, all wrong, headed for disaster as surely as the Titanic headed for the iceberg. But if it was like that, there was nothing else to do. “If you have to go back to the club,” she said, the words heavy on her tongue, “I’ll come with you. You won’t be alone.”

And Sylvia, exhausted in body and soul, put her head on Jemma’s shoulder and wept.

Forty minutes later—after taking Sylvia home, and making her a pot of cocoa on the spirit-lamp, and fighting with the latchkey at her own front door, and ridding herself of both her clothes and the filth she felt sitting on her skin, and returning her ring to her finger with a sigh of relief—Jemma finally crept silently to their bedroom. It was nigh on one in the morning and she expected to find Fitz curled up and snoring softly; she only hoped there was space for her to slide in next to him. She needed him, even unconscious, tonight. But a light peeked through the crack, and she opened the door to find her husband sitting up against the headboard in the golden pool from his bed-lamp, a journal of some kind in his lap and his head bobbing awkwardly against his chest. She stopped in the doorway and pressed a hand to her chest, knowing that if she did not her heart would swell right out of it. Oh, she loved him. More than anything else in the world, yes, but also more than the world entire—if the world was a solid, perfect diamond, it still wouldn’t compare to her Fitz.

She snuck to his side and gently tugged the journal away. He didn’t stir until she flicked out the light. “Jem?” he snorted, blinking confusedly into the dark.

“Yes, sweetheart.” She pushed at his shoulder to direct him down.

He reached for her sleeve blindly, even as he moved. “Tried to wait—’m sorry—”

“Never mind,” she said, heart full to bursting. “It was awful; I don’t want to talk about it. Budge over?”

Obeying, he protested anyway, brogue thick as treacle. “But that’s the left side. You like right.”

“I like all your sides, Fitz.” She pushed back the covers and got in, throwing her arm over his middle and placing her ear over his heart. The steady thump, thump, brought a contented smile to her face. Here, she thought, beat the heart of the best of men. “Fitz?” she whispered, meaning to tell him _thank you_ and _you’re so marvelous_ and _I love you_.

But a snore was her only response.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My undying thanks go out to agent-85 for (a) reassuring me this wasn't too long, (b) being generally enthusiastic so I know it's not awful, and (c) being a simply fabulous person. You know what you ought to do between PAB chapters? Read her entire catalogue. You won't regret it!


	10. Make New Friends But Keep the Old

Fitz shook the hands of his department heads in turn as they filed into the outer office, then heaved a sigh of relief after the door closed behind them. With Jemma at Oxford on Tuesdays, he tried to get as much work done as humanly possible. Andrews, however, who Fitz suspected of being an automaton, had an entirely different idea of what was humanly possible, and Fitz usually found himself wrung out by tea time. Giving himself a minute, he did a few exercises to stretch his spine before returning to his desk. “Andrews?” he asked, pressing the intercom.

“Yes sir.”

“What’s next?”

“A Mr. Smith, sir, at quarter past four.”

Fitz checked his watch. That allowed him at least twenty minutes of uninterrupted time—enough to drink a cup of tea in peace, and to work on his half of Jemma’s project. Since she could prioritize her work in the lab, her bit was often three or four steps beyond his. She never complained, but he knew it frustrated her to be unable to move forward because he lagged behind. Opening his bottom drawer, he pulled out his blueprints, his tools, and the small model he had knocked together in odd moments. “Andrews? Tea, please.”

“Right away, sir.”

Humming under his breath, he spent his twenty minutes so happily that he forgot to pay attention to the time and jumped a little when Andrews buzzed to let him know Mr. Smith was coming in. He had no time to sweep his work away and had to scramble for a crash cloth to wipe the grease from his hands. “Sorry, sorry,” he said without looking up, “just a minute.”

“Take your time.”

The voice sounded vaguely familiar, but not enough to place. Not until he looked up and saw before him the thin, grim, silent third man from the Osbourne’s benefit. Strange that he should remember him so clearly, but every second of that evening had engraved itself on his memory—enough, it seemed, to recall even this man who was so much a mystery that Lady Hermione hadn’t even known his name. “Mr. Smith,” he said, extending a now-clean hand, “I don’t think we were introduced before.”

“That was my intention,” the man said.

Fitz let his hand fall, hoping it looked purposeful, and cleared his throat. “Ah. Well. What can I do for you, Mr. Smith?”

Mr. Smith folded himself into one of the armchairs and reclined, draping his hands across the armrests like a king on his throne. Fitz fought back the sudden panicked memory of being called into the headmaster’s study and remained on his feet to wait for an answer. He would not cede the power in his office without an effort.

“Did you listen to Herr Hitler’s speech last night?”

He had to work to keep his face flat. “No, but I read it this morning.” He could read German tolerably well, but couldn’t understand it verbally at all. And Jemma, who usually translated, had been out. “Rather frightening. One feels horribly sorry for those poor Czechs.”

“Yeeees,” Mr. Smith said slowly, tenting his fingers. “Yes, the situation there is a difficult one. To have such a large portion of one’s population dedicated to the agenda of a foreign power. . . “

Fitz frowned. “I understood, sir, that the majority of the country wished to remain under Czechoslovakian—”

“We live, as I’m sure you know, Mr. Fitz, in dangerous times. In fact, I believe you admitted that the possibility of war was high when we last spoke.”

“I did no such thing!” The words came out in a near shriek, the best he could manage when his brain had switched on every alarm. Who _was_ this Mr. Smith? How did Fitz know he wasn’t some kind of blackmailer or extortionist? His life could be comfortably compared to the driven snow, but one _whiff_ of scandal and Whitehall could bring the whole thing to ruins. Did he need Mr. Biggs? Could he trick Mr. Smith into thinking Mr. Biggs was his mountainous bodyguard?

“You weren’t incorrect.” Seemingly blind to Fitz’s panic, Mr. Smith slowly reached into his jacket—a gun, he had a gun, Fitz was going to die and he hadn’t even looked at Jemma when he kissed her last night—and pulled out a thin sheet of paper. “My credentials.”

Fitz took it with shaking hands, nearly tearing the paper as he unfolded it. _To Whom It May Concern_ , it read, _the bearer of this paper is an agent of His Majesty the King, authorized by his ministers the duly elected representatives of the people to. . ._ Then followed a long list of permissions that made his eyes go wide. At the very bottom, nestled by a frankly astounding list of signatures, a photo of the man in front of him proved he hadn’t killed someone to take this from the dead body. “It could be faked,” he said, more bravely than he felt.

“It isn’t.”

“Why should I believe you?”

“You shouldn’t without more proof. Fortunately, I have that too.” He handed over another letter, this one from the man Fitz reported to about the Project. Fitz couldn’t mistake the handwriting, and he folded the letter infinitely relieved.

“All right,” he said, “so. How can I help you, Mr. Smith?”

“We need a device, and we need you to make it.”

“A device,” Fitz repeated, and paused. Mr. Smith did not elaborate. “You know I don’t actually make weapons, don’t you?” he asked when another minute of silence had passed. “Mr. Stark designed everything for the Project and I’m only making sure it’s carried out correctly. If you want a bomb or something of the sort—”

“We do not. We would like to avoid such drastically violent methods. We want something subtle.”

“To do what?”

Mr. Smith got to his feet, clasping his hands behind him and indicating the desk with his chin. “What does that do, Mr. Fitz?”

“Mr. Fitz-Simmons,” he corrected automatically. “Er, it’s something for a project my wife is working on. It’s meant to contain a compound she’s developed and release it at a steady rate when activated. That doesn’t do anything, though. It’s only a model.”

“Will it work?”

“Of course it will,” he said hotly, stung by Mr. Smith’s doubt. Then, remembering Mr. Biggs’s admonitions not to let his pride make promises he couldn’t keep, he scratched at his cheek a little shamefaced. “That is, I expect so. It may require a few modifications, but essentially.”

“Your wife’s work is in poison gasses, I believe.”

“No, it’s in antidotes to poison gasses. She’s constructive, not destructive. Even this”—he picked up the model and turned it in his hand—“is for exterminators to use instead of arsenic.”

“And you build—”

“The dispersal mechanisms.”

“Indeed.” Mr. Smith regarded him levelly. “Mr. Fitz— Simmons,” he added belatedly, “it will be no surprise to you the vast amount of chemical weapons in various states of development. Mustard gas is only the most well-known.”

Setting the model back down, he felt his jaw stiffen. “Yes. And?”

“In this time of unrest, we are naturally interested in protecting ourselves from attack on all fronts—a sentiment I believe you share.”

He had said something of the sort, curse everything. As Mr. Smith’s agenda emerged from the slippery governmental murk, Fitz had the uneasy suspicion that he’d rather not have anything to do with it. “But the Geneva Protocols,” he protested, knowing how weak it sounded.

Mr. Smith gave him a pitying look. “Are only an agreement not to engage in chemical warfare if no one else does. As you know, or you wouldn’t have spent so much time designing gas masks.” Fitz’s ears went red. Mr. Smith continued impassively. “We need this research and your work to protect ourselves most fully.”

It was a demand, not a request, and Fitz knew arguing would be fruitless. Why argue anyway, he asked himself; hadn’t they worked on the antidotes and masks for that very reason? Still, watching Mr. Smith settle unctuously back in the chair, he crossed his arms across his chest and shook his head. “Mrs. Fitz-Simmons isn’t here today. It’s her work, so I’m afraid we can’t help you.”

“We don’t want your wife.” Mr. Smith smiled tolerantly. “We know she doesn’t come to the office on Tuesday, of course. This is classified work, and you’ve already got clearance. You’ll tell us what we need to know.”

Fitz blinked rapidly several times, too appalled to even protest. Give the government all Jemma’s work, just like that, without her permission? He’d sooner be hung by his thumbs. But. But the nonchalance clearly belonged to a man confident in his power to get his own way. If his credentials were real, in fact, this entire conversation was merely a courtesy. He could just seize it, with no one to object.

But. Fitz brought his thumb to his lower lip, thinking hard. If he agreed, he would know exactly what they had and be able to tell Jemma about it afterwards. He could manage the information directly. And, he remembered, Jemma had given him express permission to share her work with Whitehall, should they ask and he deem it beneficial. This fell squarely within those guidelines. As long as he told her, everything would be all right. “Fine. I’ll give you what you need. But you can’t just take it, or she’ll know. You’ll have to copy it here.”

“We’ll send someone to copy it tonight.”

“No,” he said, finally sitting, “we have a dinner engagement tonight.”

“It isn’t necessary for you to be here, Mr. Fitz— Simmons.”

“It is, actually. But I will find a time as soon as possible. Is that satisfactory?”

Mr. Smith regarded him for a minute, then nodded and stood. “As soon as possible. We will be in communication.”

Fitz stood as well, extending his hand again. Instantly, Mr. Smith’s thin one encased it as if in an iron vise. What little pleasantness had been in his face dropped away entirely, unsheathing the knife Fitz had only guessed at before. “Mr. Fitz-Simmons. I will not insult your intelligence by reminding you what classified means. I will, however, remind you that this is highly sensitive information which, if disseminated, could greatly harm our relationships with our allies.”

“Of course,” he said. Word escaping could signal that England intended to engage in chemical warfare if provoked; it didn’t take much effort to imagine the delicate tightrope Europe was walking snapping under that knowledge.

“If we were to find out that someone had been talking when they shouldn’t have been,” Mr. Smith continued, “the consequences would be very bad for that someone. And for their loved ones. You have a mother, I believe, in addition to your lovely wife?”

All the blood in Fitz’s body turned to ice.

“I understand you are devoted to Mrs. Fitz-Simmons. Naturally you love her a great deal; she’s a very impressive girl. However, you’re young—you may not have learned yet that sometimes loving one’s wife means placing a higher importance on other things.”

“Of course,” he said again. This time it came out in a croak. A slow, lupine smile spread across Mr. Smith’s face.

“You’re a clever man. We understand each other.”

But the longer Fitz thought about it, the more he realized that he understood very little of what had happened, much less what he agreed to. Mr. Smith implied a great deal without saying very much, leaving him only with a few facts:

  1. Whitehall wanted access to Jemma’s research into poison gasses.
  2. They wanted access to protect themselves from unnamed threats.
  3. They wanted this information to be kept secret, so as not to worry their allies.



So far so straightforward. However, it left an equal or greater number of questions:

  1. Her research was into antidotes, but Mr. Smith hadn’t seemed to know that.
  2. With Chamberlin swearing up and down Hitler wasn’t a threat, who exactly were they protecting against?
  3. Weren’t the allies doing the same thing in secret? Were people looking for an excuse to go to war?
  4. This wasn’t Russia or Italy. Exactly how far would the British Government go to protect itself?
  5. Could he, Fitz, actually manage to keep this secret from Jemma?



Pondering with his entire subconscious and most of his conscious, he carried out the rest of his day in a blur and later counted it a miracle that he got home without causing any traffic accidents. The fog remained until he hit his own front door, shrugging off his coat to trust to Lane’s capable hands and setting his attaché against the hall table. Lane removed it with a subtle grimace. “Mr. Biggs and Mr. Klein have arrived, sir. They are in the library.”

“Thank you, Lane.” But he didn’t need Lane to tell him; it was obvious from the peals of laughter that filled the hall: his mother’s warm chuckle, a masculine laugh blasting through unintelligible words, Jemma’s exuberant, roiling chortle. Fitz let out a breath he didn’t know he had been holding. Logically, he knew that there had been neither opportunity nor reason for mysterious government figures to carry out Mr. Smith’s shadowy threats, but emotions were rarely logical. Throwing open the door, he sought her blindly, instinctively, and nearly collapsed with relief when he saw her curled-up in helpless laughter.

“Oh, Fitz! At last.” Jemma jumped from her chair and came to meet him, eyes dancing with mischief and merriment. Holding her hand for him to take, she smirked up through her eyelashes and added, “Mr. Klein was just telling us about a trick you played on someone at your school. Now I understand why you’re so good at mending!”

He gripped her hand like a lifeline and followed her willingly, nodding to Mr. Biggs and kissing his mother as he passed her. “Mam taught me, and Aaron did most of the work.”

“Not half,” Aaron laughed, standing to greet him. Fitz met him halfway, wrapping his left hand around their clasped rights while Aaron put his left hand on Fitz’s upper arm. They had always said hello in this way, the secret handshake of the Society of Lonely and Affectionate Boys (known as SLAB, it had a membership of two). Turning to Jemma, Aaron shook his head so emphatically that his precariously perched yarmulke nearly fell off. “Don’t let him fool you, Mrs. Fitz-Simmons. Fitz was the one working his fingers to the bone taking in Brewster’s trousers millimeter by millimeter for an entire term.”

“He deserved it,” Fitz said, gratified by the memory. “And Mr. Biggs didn’t even have to rescue us from that one.”

Mr. Biggs’s mouth twitched slightly, as if tugged up against his will. “I did tell you there was more than one way to beat people over the head. It would have been a tragedy if you had permanently damaged your hands trying to fight.”

“Might makes right,” Aaron said, “but cleverness can generally find a way around. Fitz, remember that time Wakefield tried to levy a toll on warm showers?”

He laughed aloud, enough that Jemma startled beside him. “His face was worth every second I spent with spiders in my hair. They _never_ worked that one out.”

“Spiders!” Jemma exclaimed, then stopped herself. “No, wait, we must go into dinner or Cook will be cross. But please don’t imagine you aren’t going to explain yourself, especially considering I had to kill the spider in your office yesterday.”

Aaron offered his arm to Jemma gallantly. “It was that very night that sealed our Fitz’s aversion to the eight-legged beasties. Prepare yourself for a tale of horror.”

“I shall shriek in all the right places,” Jemma promised solemnly, then immediately spoiled it with a broad wink in Fitz’s direction.

Dinner was a riotous affair, as far from the somber, silent meals Fitz and Aaron suffered at Winchester as Egypt was from Antarctica. The spider story—which horrified and amused Jemma in equal measure—led to more escapades, the last of which left his mother actually wiping away tears of mirth. “What happened to that boy?” she asked. “Nothing good, I’d imagine.”

Aaron shrugged. Fitz crimped one eye thoughtfully and turned to Jemma. “He sent us a card or something, didn’t he?”

“Possibly,” she said cheerfully, “though I certainly don’t recall. There were so many cards and I didn’t know half the people.”

“Came out of the woodwork like cockroaches,” Fitz growled in explanation to Aaron, “Brewster, Wakefield, Igby, all that crowd.”

“They always were a lot of brownnosers,” Aaron said.

“First time I ever respected Hollingswood. If he hated me in school he had better not send me well-wishes just because I came up in the world.”

Aaron put down his knife and fork, brow beetling darkly. “Oh, well, Hollingswood likely didn’t even hear about it where he is.”

“Prison?” Fitz joked, but Aaron shook his head grimly.

“Defected to Germany, the swine. All those years calling you Kraut and Hun because you happen to have a German name, and then he goes and gets in bed with Hitler. But what else would you expect from that odious rotter?”

Fitz remembered Hollingswood’s permanent sneer, the clammy whiteness of his hands, the way he had of backing new boys into the corner and not letting them out until they knew who was in charge. A shudder worked its way over his body. Yes, he and Hitler were two of a kind.

A cold hand lighted just above his knee. _All right?_ Jemma asked, not bothering to hide her concern.

Pushing the corners of his mouth up fleetingly, he tried for reassurance. From her skeptical expression, he had not succeeded.

“Too common these days, I fear,” Mr. Biggs put in, his naturally gloomy tones for once fitting the subject. “If no one takes action soon, we may lose the war of ideals before we ever come to blows.”

For some reason, Mr. Biggs’s words echoed back through the hours to twine with Mr. Smith’s ominous insinuations. Fitz’s eyes and stomach dropped. There it was again: the assumption that this time of peace was no peace at all, only the slow circling of combatants as they sized each other up. Their “allies” could turn on them at any moment; their defenses could be overcome before they knew to shore them up. Hadn’t he accepted MI with all its responsibility for this very reason? And if so, didn’t he have a duty to assist Mr. Smith in his endeavors?

Only once Jemma spoke did he realize that a heavy silence had fallen over the room: “There are always a few rotten apples,” she said, never taking her eyes off him. “A girl from my school has got herself mixed up in not one, but two murder cases.”

The mood cracked like ice. Mr. Biggs, unable to undo fifty years’ custom, frowned reproachfully at Jemma’s frivolity, but Fitz made a mental note to kiss her for it later. God bless his wife. Picking up his utensils again, Aaron seemed more at ease as well. “Yes, these murders. Fitz promised me gory details and the chance to consult, and I think I’ve been very good so far in avoiding the subject.”

Jean stood, nodding at Lane where he stood with the tray of coffee. “If you’re going to discuss gory details, I’m going to take myself away. Haven’t the stomach for them.”

“Only financial ones,” Fitz said as the gentlemen clambered to their feet, “stay if you like, Mam.”

But she shook her head. “I must be up and doing early in the morning, thank you, son. Good night, gentlemen. Good night, lambs.”

They echoed good nights while Lane served the coffee around, then waited for the door to shut behind him. As soon as they heard the snick of the latch, Aaron and Mr. Biggs looked to him and Jemma, leaning forward in eager anticipation—that is, Aaron leaned forward. Mr. Biggs merely waited, hands clasped together on the table. “Well,” he said.

“Well,” Fitz repeated with a glance at Jemma, and then they were off. Speaking over and around each other, elaborating on each other’s points or breaking off their own to argue details, they slowly but steadily spun out the course of their investigation thus far. Mr. Biggs, tracking the trail through Fitz’s notebook, listened patiently. Aaron’s face shifted between amazement, confusion, and something like glee.

“That’s marvelous,” he said when they had finished. “Have you got one brain between you or two?”

“Two, of course,” Jemma said, “as is biologically necessary.”

“Marvelous,” he said again, shaking his head.

“Their mental and verbal entanglement is indeed impressive,” Mr. Biggs said dryly, “however, it is hardly pertinent. Have you grasped the essential details?”

Tipping his chair back on two legs, Aaron nodded as gravely as he could manage. “I believe so, but perhaps you had better recapitulate for us.”

Mr. Biggs looked as though someone had given him everything his heart had wished for, which meant that he made a noise like a pigeon and pulled Fitz’s notebook towards him with a self-satisfied air. “Certainly, if you wish.” As he cleared his throat, the three younger members of the party shared amused glances. “Well,” he began, “as I understand it, Fitz and Mrs. Fitz-Simmons have undertaken this investigation under the assumption that, contrary to appearances, the sad death of Stafford Osbourne was the intended outcome of the evening, rather than the theft. Accordingly, they looked for a motive. Osbourne’s beneficiaries are either family members or institutions, or small amounts—”

“Except for this Miss Forbes,” Aaron put in.

“But she wasn’t at the party,” Jemma corrected, “so she had no opportunity.”

“Ahem.” Silencing them with a stern eye, Mr. Biggs continued. “Small amounts, which would not be in themselves proper motivation for murder. Therefore, they turned their attention to the family as the most likely suspects. And properly, too, in my opinion, if that interpretation of the crime is indeed correct. After conversation with several parties about the Osbourne family, they have discovered tentative motives for several family members, and now require assistance following the half-suspected suggestions to their end and, we may hope, the truth.”

Aaron nodded. “That’s what I understood, as well. Good to know we’re all on the same page. Shall I find a notebook too?”

“I don’t think that’s necessary,” Fitz said, at the same time Jemma shook her head with a “Better not take notes.” The glee returned to Aaron’s face, and Fitz spoke quickly to avoid another enthusiastic observation. “We have to be subtle, according to Iris, so no taking notes. Until later.”

“But I may take some now, mayn’t I?”

“Of course.” Jemma tore some pages from her notebook, which they had been using for reference, and passed them over. Aaron blanched. “Just ignore the other writing,” she said hastily, “it’s nothing important. What we need you to find out, Mr. Klein—”

“Aaron,” he said, clearly writing _Things To Find Out_ across the top of the page. Fitz admired his methodology.

“Then it's Jemma,” she smiled back. “Aaron, we need you to find out, as far as possible, how much of these rumors are true. What exactly _are_ debts of honor and notes in the keeping of men in the City and allowable financial straits? How much money are we speaking of?”

Scribbling furiously, he stopped to rub a hand through his hair in a gesture so familiar Fitz almost felt the tight discomfort of short pants around his thigh. On their late nights slaving over Latin translations, both of them looked like bushmen before they were through. “Depends, really, on their credit in the City. Osbourne was well respected, but whether that would extend to his children or to his daughter’s husband probably depends on the lender. Or they might have raised money on their expectations. How much did you say they came into?”

Mr. Biggs took the response: “Five thousand pounds apiece.” Frowning down at the notebook, he added, “However, the amount is in trust. None of the issue would be allowed to use it to pay off debts, at least not without substantial time and effort. Any pressing concerns—”

“He means any debts that were coming quickly due,” Aaron interjected.

Mr. Biggs nodded acknowledgement. “—would not be able to be met in time, in my professional judgment. However, there is no indication that Osbourne’s children knew that their money would be in trust. They may have expected to be given it absolutely, or to be given more.”

“They could raise money on what’s in trust, perhaps,” Aaron said thoughtfully. “How would one find out what they knew?”

Looking down his nose, Mr. Biggs allowed the slight tip of his eyebrow that indicated amusement. “Generally one asks them.”

“Which we can’t do,” Fitz sighed. “We’re not allowed to speak with the family.”

“What kind of rubbish inquiry is this?”

Jemma huffed her agreement with Aaron’s assessment. “Our hands are tied. I don’t know how they expect us to solve anything with the little information we have. Fortunately, motive isn’t the entirety of a case.”

“Not,” Fitz added, “that we have any more information in that regard. Opportunity? Certainly, they all have it. Means? It was a bloody poker; anyone could have swung it. It’s so—” He waved his hands, unable to find the word.

“Nebulous,” Jemma said firmly. “There’s no firm evidence for us to build a case upon. That’s why we’ve had to ask for your assistance. We need _facts_.”

Aaron nodded, scoring a line under whatever he had written. “Follow the money and see where it goes—or where it’s been, rather. What else?”

Jemma demurred to Fitz, who looked at the next item on their list and took a deep breath. “We’ve no idea if this is something that can even be done, but we wondered if there was a way to track the stocks that were stolen. Find out if anyone’s sold them, and when, and to whom.”

Throwing his pencil onto the table, Aaron bit his lip and ran a hand through his hair again. “Possibly,” he said finally. “If I had the certificate numbers, I might be able to get most of that information. If I only knew what they were, I might be able to get a bit of it. But it would take a decent amount of time.”

“We’ve got time,” Fitz said. It was the only thing _to_ say. They lacked any way to force a quicker investigation; unlike with the last one, the pieces of the puzzle had spread to kingdom come, some lost forever and some locked away where they couldn’t fit them in. Jemma caught his eye and held it, not saying anything so much as sharing the waves of frustration washing over her. He sympathized entirely. Used as they were to being able to impose their will upon problems by utilizing their cleverness to subvert obstacles, their inability to act in this situation grated unfamiliarly.

Blind to the conversation passing between his hosts, Aaron muttered “check stocks” and jabbed at the pad. “What about the necklace? There was a necklace stolen too, wasn’t there?”

“Yes,” Jemma said, “an emerald one, but I expect the police will have followed any leads already.”

Aaron snorted. “Respect where it’s due, but it isn’t due to the police when it comes to jewels. Stones might be worth more in a setting, true, but they aren’t worth anything if you can’t get rid of them quickly. Emeralds, you said?” At their nod, he returned to his notes. “My uncles are jewelers. They would know if anyone’s been selling emeralds lately.”

“You think the thieves separated them?” Mr. Biggs asked sharply. “That would explain why the police have been unsuccessful in locating them.”

“ _If_ it’s a thief,” Jemma said, “which isn’t clear. If it’s a member of the family, they may be perfectly fine selling off stocks but not wish to part with a family heirloom.”

The value of family heirlooms escaped Fitz, never having had any to boast of, but he saw an additional point even so. “Or perhaps Mr. Osbourne wasn’t murdered for money at all. We’ve only found financial motives, that’s true, but it could also be an entirely personal reason we don’t know about. Larry and the row, for example, or someone else had a row or was about to. In that case the stocks and the necklace were just a blind, and they’re hidden someplace in the house.”

Jemma groaned. “Oh, Fitz, don’t _say_ such awful things. If we’ve got to find the motive for murder in a private quarrel between members of a family we’re forbidden to speak to, we may as well fold right now.”

“Better than a homicidal maniac,” he said, not without a twinge of bitterness. “I suppose no one’s tried that theory yet?”

Snapping Fitz’s notebook shut, Mr. Biggs pushed it towards them and then pushed back from the table. “This case bears none of the hallmarks of a maniac, Fitz; I believe you may safely discount it. Mrs. Fitz-Simmons, thank you for your hospitality, but the hour is late and I must depart. Some of us like to keep to our time—please know I do not include you in this pointed comment, Mrs. Fitz-Simmons. Your punctuality does credit to your sex.”

Jemma’s laugh burbled up quickly, playing about the corners of her eyes when she regained control. “Thank you, Mr. Biggs, my sex appreciates the compliment. May I walk you to the door?”

“Nothing would give me more pleasure,” he responded formally, offering her his arm.

As they walked away, Aaron leaned towards Fitz and spoke sotto voce. “With compliments like that, it’s a wonder old Biggs never married.”

He laughed, watching Jemma’s dress trail around the corner. “I can’t even imagine what Mrs. Biggs would be like, can you?”

“No, but then I couldn’t imagine a Mrs. Fitz, either, and look at you!” Aaron sat back, glowing with pleasure. “Fitz, old chum, you didn’t do her justice. She is a star among women.”

“Technically, she isn’t Mrs. Fitz. But you are perfectly correct otherwise.”

“How,” Aaron asked, shaking his head, “how can the rest of us mere mortals hope for even a halfway decent girl, when your wife has clearly stolen more than her fair share of God’s gifts? Brains and heart and looks and all. Has she got a flaw?”

“She has very poor circulation,” Fitz said, “but look here, old man, I thought you had a girl?”

A shadow passed over Aaron’s face, quick as lightning. “Fell through, I’m afraid. Couldn’t face spending her life with an adding machine, I suppose. Yes”—he saw Fitz’s objection before it left his mouth—“I know, I’m not an adding machine. It’s fine, Fitzy. I don’t mind more than once a week. Please don’t try to make me feel better.”

“All right, I won’t,” he said, “but I will wish you luck. Of course you can never have anyone as wonderful as my wife, because she doesn’t exist, but maybe the second-best girl in the world. Perhaps Jemma knows someone.”

“Fitz!” Aaron protested, laughing, “don’t you dare. But speaking of people Jemma knows, am I correct in assuming the mysterious beneficiary, one Sylvia Forbes, is one of their number?”

Fitz glanced towards the door and lowered his voice. “Yes, but for goodness’ sake don’t bring it up. We have to keep her on the suspect list nominally, but if she’s after the money she’s being very stupid about it, and she really wasn’t at the benefit that night. Jemma’s very protective of her.”

“Why?”

“Goodness,” Jemma’s voice came from the door, “I thought only girls told secrets. Ought I be jealous?”

Aaron popped to his feet. “We were just singing your praises, and we kept our voices down because we knew you were too modest to enjoy hearing the lavish compliments we heaped upon you.”

“Quite wrong,” she said as she glided around to stand by Fitz’s chair and place her hand lightly on his shoulder, “I love to hear compliments. Ordinarily, that is; I’m afraid I must decline at present. Will you gentlemen mind terribly if I leave you to your own devices? I’ve got a heap of work to do, and, like Mr. Biggs, I go to work with the flower-girls at Covent Garden.”

“Not literally,” Fitz assured Aaron, “She has a proper lab.” Putting his hand over hers, he craned his neck to meet her eyes. “Must you go, really? I haven’t properly seen you in days.”

“ _A_ day,” she laughed, “and what do you call this? But I’ll stay if you like.”

He shook his head. “Don’t mind me, Simmons.” _I won’t be selfish, though I’d like to._

_Thank you, sweetheart._ “Good night, then,” she said lightly, squeezing his hand and tossing a grin at Aaron.

He stuck out a hand for her to shake on her way to the door. “Thank you, Jemma. My friend is the luckiest man in the world.”

“Oh, I rather think it’s the opposite. Come back again soon, Aaron, we’ll love to have you.” And she went to the door and shut it behind her, throwing him a final _I love you_ through the crack.

Aaron turned back to him, shaking his head again. “An incandescent star. Fitz, my friend, if you don’t love that girl more than anything else in the world, I’ve been wrong about your intelligence all these years.”

“I do,” he said, “more than anything.”

Aaron leaned across the table to clap him on the shoulder before changing the subject to Fitz’s investment strategies—a topic he could discuss for hours without a conversation partner—leaving ample space for Fitz’s declaration to echo ominously around his head. It shouldn’t be ominous. He _did_ love Jemma more than anything else in the world; there was nothing he wouldn’t do to see her safe and happy. Only he had never considered before that _nothing_ might include things he would otherwise not do—leap in front of a car for her, certainly, but steal her research for the government? Willfully keep an important secret from her? Both those actions felt like a betrayal. But to do anything else would be to open her up to some very nasty business, putting her in danger that he could, if he would swallow his scruples, protect her from. Mr. Smith was wrong, he realized as Aaron began drawing a pie chart over the top of his To Investigate list: he would not do this because he loved something more than Jemma. He would do this because he loved Jemma more than anything.

He trailed up to bed hours later, having called a cab to take Aaron home once they realized they weren’t getting through a sentence without yawning, and undressed in the dark. Jemma was a soft lump on her side of the bed and barely moved when he got in. Wrapping his arms around her from behind, he kissed the nape of her neck.

She stirred slightly, snuggling back. “Mm, Fitz. Have a good time?”

He would never cease to be amazed at how she could go from sleeping to wide awake in half a second, but in this case he was glad. “The best. We should have dinner parties more often.”

“We should not,” she said, in a voice meant to be firm but sounding childishly stubborn instead. “I don’t like having to share you. Even with people who have loved you longer than I have.”

“I know you love me best.”

“I do. And you love me best, yes?”

“Best of all,” he said, holding her tighter to shove away the chiding voices in his head. _I am loving her. It is loving her. That’s all._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is, perhaps, as good a place as any to state the one intentional lapse I'm making in historical accuracy. In the period, even nice people were vaguely anti-Semitic; they might get on with respectable Jewish people (of which there were many), but the names used to refer to the race tended to be derogatory. Polite people might say Aaron was a Jew, rather than that he was Jewish. In this chapter, and throughout the rest of the work, I have decided to use modern inclusive language rather than attempt historical accuracy. My characters mean to be respectful, and so do I.
> 
> Much thanks go again to agent-85, whose insightful comments led to a major rewrite that pushed the chapter to, like, 6k, but also made it immeasurably better. She is a gem of our fandom.


	11. The Storm Gathers

Fitz didn’t move when Jemma got up Wednesday morning—not that he ever did, really, but her goodbye kiss usually resulted in an unconscious, sleepy smile. He must have stayed up very late with Aaron. Odd, she mused as she readied herself for the day; all this time she assumed Fitz had been as lonely as herself, and instead he had this friend with years full of memories together. It made her wonder what other secrets her husband held. Nothing very dreadful, of course. Still, she found the idea slightly disquieting.

Jean looked up from the paper when Jemma entered the breakfast room, smiling warmly in the way she and her son shared. Some girls, Jemma believed, resented having to live with their husband’s mother, but she found it to be one of the myriad benefits of being married to Fitz. Not only did Jean manage the household, leaving Jemma free to concentrate on her work, but she also provided a comfortable hominess she and Fitz would have been hard-pressed to create on their own. Although, to be honest, anywhere Fitz was was home enough for her. “Good morning, Jean. What awful thing has happened today?”

“Nothing, surprisingly,” Jean said as Jemma slid into her seat and pulled the teapot towards her. “I find it worrisome.”

“Surely no news is good news?”

Jean nodded, but her mouth flattened into the thin, grim line of disagreement. Taking off the top of her egg, Jemma waited patiently for further explanation. Fitz may have been more vocal about it than Jean, but he got his drive to elaborate from her, beyond a shadow of a doubt.

She made it halfway through her first piece of toast. “Or,” Jean said, “it could mean the news is so bad they can’t share it without raising a riot.”

“Not in this day and age, surely.”

“We’ll hope.” Jean returned to the paper, flipping several pages. “Oh, look, there’s a sale at Selfridges. I must go buy some cards of buttons. You would be horrified how many people get rid of things simply because they haven’t got buttons.”

“Is it for the charity drive?” Jemma asked. At Jean’s nod, she swallowed her tea hastily. “I’m sorry I haven’t asked how it’s going. Er, how _is_ it going?”

Jean smiled indulgently. “Quite well, thank you, pet. We have extended to the East End after all. There’s a rather clever curate—or something, I’m unfamiliar with Anglican structure—who’s helping us organize. Such a _nice_ young man, and with a great capacity for empathy with the poor, though he seems to be well-heeled himself.”

“Perhaps he’s like you and Fitz,” she suggested.

“Perhaps, though I believe movement, uncommon as it is, generally goes the other way.”

Like Sylvia. Jemma munched at her toast pensively, mind tracing paths her thoughts had beat out yesterday. Her busy schedule on Tuesdays had prohibited rendezvousing with Sylvia, but her friend had never been far from her mind; her plight, and Jemma’s lack of ability to _do_ anything about it, weighed heavily. All her pondering had produced no results. In the end, the only possible action had to be taken by someone else, and Sylvia refused to take it. Much like with the investigation, her hands were tied _here_ too.

“That was a heavy sigh,” Jean observed.

Coming sharply back to the room, Jemma smiled apologetically. “Sorry. I was only thinking about things I can’t fix. You know how I hate feeling impotent.”

“Small steps, lamb.”

“That’s true.” Popping the last bit of crust into her mouth, she wiped her face clean of butter. “And in the meantime, I’m off to the lab, where I am more than capable of wrenching a success from the least hopeful of situations. Will we see you for dinner?”

“Not tonight. It’s soup night with the Salvation Army.”

So she would have Fitz all to herself all evening? She tried, but did not quite succeed in keeping a broad grin from spreading across her face. The day had just taken on a decidedly brighter shine. Much as she loved Jean, she hadn’t seen Fitz alone in far too long; they had _quite_ a bit with which to fill the time. Perhaps if she was productive, she thought as she all but skipped to the car, she could convince him to leave early.

Hours later, however, she despaired of being able to leave her own work at a decent hour, much less convince Fitz to leave his. She had been over-confident that morning, boasting to Jean of her mastery over her projects; today they seemed almost sentient in their refusal to behave. Every combination of chemicals she tried defied her hypotheses, either exploding or making an awful smell or simply lying there inert. One, which she had high hopes for, actually sent her rats into a coma after three minutes of breathing the oddly-scented air. _Not_ the result she intended. Frustrated beyond even her generous boundaries, she tore her goggles from her face and shrieked into her hands, the sound high and shrill like a teakettle.

“Jemma?”

She looked up sharply, smoothing her hair away as though she meant to do it. “Sylvia!” she said, peering through her various apparatus to find the doorway. “I’m glad you’re here. I’ve been wondering how you’re getting on.”

“Oh, tolerably.” But when she came into view, she looked worse even than she did when Jemma left her Monday night. Dark rings rimmed her eyes, her usually neat clothes looked as though she had picked them up from a heap on the floor, and the handkerchief she carried was twisted into knots. Fitz’s handkerchief, Jemma realized when she laid it on the bench between them. “I know it doesn’t look it, but I did wash and press it yesterday.”

“Fitz will never notice.”

“That it looks like that, or that it was gone at all?”

“Either,” Jemma said honestly, and Sylvia managed an almost smile. Peeling off her gloves, Jemma stuck her hands into the pockets of her lab smock and tried not to look as though she was peering concernedly. Though of course she was. How else could she know if it was all right to press? After a minute in which Sylvia made no sign of either moving or speaking, Jemma assumed the responsibility for conversation fell to her. Best to tear off the sticking plaster in one go. “Has Mr. Forbes made up for his boorish behavior yet?”

Upon further reflection, Jemma recognized she could have phrased her question more tactfully. Sylvia’s bronze eyes flashed sparks and she set her jaw, speaking through tight lips. “Beg pardon, but I rather think my fiancé’s behavior is my business, and not yours.”

“Of course,” she said, back-peddling furiously even though she rather thought Sylvia had made it her business. “I only meant—”

“I wouldn’t presume to comment on your marriage.”

As though there was anything to comment on. “No, no,” she said, and put her hands out pleadingly. “Sylvia, I’m sorry. I’ve been worried for you, that’s all. I didn’t mean to pry.”

Sylvia watched her warily for a long moment. Then she sighed, all the fight leaving her bones. “Only I feel a bit pale today, and I haven’t the energy to mount a defense.”

“I shouldn’t make you. I’m a bit cross today, too.”

“Work not going well?” Sylvia sympathetically, lifting a corked-off tube to examine the color.

“Not at _all_.” Blowing a frustrated hair out of her eyes, she directed Sylvia’s attention to the slumbering rats. “I suppose that’s technically a success—those rats ought to be dead—but it’s a far cry from what I intended.”

“What did you intend?”

She sighed, listlessly shuffling through her notes. “I’m attempting to create something to replace an excess of carbon monoxide in the air with the correct balance of oxygen and carbon dioxide, for miners and people who find suicides and things. The detector is all well and good but it’s in such an early stage of development we can’t expect it to have an affect for years. We sorely need something that works now.”

“What’s wrong with them?” Sylvia bent down for a better look, drawing her face level with the sealed but clear cage. “And do I smell anise?”

“That’s the compound. As for what’s wrong with them, here, have a look.”

She passed her notes over the bench, resting her chin in her hands while Sylvia perused them. Though not a chemist, Sylvia was able to provide a biological perspective that Jemma had, if she was honest, rather skipped over in setting up her experiment. Luckily, the rats woke up while they were in the middle of discussing the parameters of a second, better experiment, allowing Sylvia to help Jemma measure and record her findings—the task went so much easier with two, and Sylvia did nicely in Fitz’s absence. Jemma heaved a silent sigh of gratitude for the work. There was nothing like straightforward scientific business to cover over and move past personal tension. She hoped very much that they wouldn’t have to address the subject again. It could only end badly.

Her hope popped like a balloon when Sylvia put the last rat back into its cage without meeting her eyes. “Listen, Jemma, actually I did speak to Mark. He wants me to go with him tomorrow to meet Mr. Charles.”

“Tomorrow,” she echoed. She didn’t have anything to keep her from going, exactly, only that it was Thursday, and she and Fitz had designated it as their night to be together. It was only the evening out of the whole day, though, and they had tonight. Maybe she could—but no. She didn’t want to give it up, even if she could. “Oh, I’m sorry—”

Sylvia continued without pause, as though the words were being squeezed from her like toothpaste from a tube. “He was very apologetic about what happened and asked me particularly to bring you along. He says he’d like to make it up to you.”

“He should be making up to you, not me,” Jemma said, pursing her lips, “and I’m less than convinced that another bad meal in bad company will do it regardless.”

“I agree, but what can I do?”

This time she knew better than to speak aloud what she thought. And, in truth, what _could_ Sylvia do? She loved Mark and wanted to be with him; she had determined this to be the best way to accomplish that goal. And, in truth, what then could Jemma do? She didn’t truly want to fling Sylvia to the wolves, however she disagreed with her, and that seemed the likely outcome if she stayed home. And she had promised, after all. “I’ll have to ask Fitz,” she said reluctantly, half hoping he’d put up a fuss and she’d have a good reason to refuse.

To her surprise, Sylvia’s eyes went wide, and she reached across the desk to grab Jemma’s arm. “No, you mustn’t!”

She froze, unable to pull away. The fear in Sylvia’s face arrested any movement. “It’s only that we had planned—Sylvia, what in heaven’s name—”

“Mark was _so_ particular about keeping it secret. He won’t even say Mr. Charles’s name over the phone. And the other one, Sansfoy—he was extremely displeased that we knew who he was. I’m afraid—”

“Do you think we’re in danger?” Jemma gasped, her voice squeaking on the last syllable. “Sylvia, if you’re worried for your safety—”

“No, no, not like that.” She shook her head firmly as Jemma paced away from the bench. “Mark wouldn’t do that, however gone he is on his present pashes. I only mean that who they are and where to find them might be of interest to the authorities, and with Mr. Fitz-Simmons being hand in glove with Whitehall—”

Jemma pounced on the argument’s weakness, returning in a rush. “Why me, then? I’m closer than hand in glove with Fitz.”

“I don’t know,” Sylvia said desperately, “but perhaps he thinks you won’t tell him. You don’t have to tell him, do you?”

“Well, I—”

She stopped. She and Fitz had never had a secret more important than a surprise in the entirety of their relationship, which from the beginning had been built on a foundation of full disclosure; they told each other everything, simply from the sheer joy of having someone willing to listen. It had been so from their very first meeting. Together in her makeshift laboratory, they had both realized that here, at last, stood someone who understood, and they had never turned back. In her secret heart, Jemma rather thought that understanding formed the truest strength of their relationship, more than their shared love or comparable brilliance. As long as they had that, the rest followed. Every instinct screamed _yes, you must tell him, you must_.

And yet, that foundational understanding would not disappear with one secret. _One_ , she told herself, and it wasn’t as though Fitz didn’t already know about her excursions to the socialist underworld. It was really only half a secret. Giving her word would hurt Fitz very little, if at all, and would help Sylvia immensely. Really, why was she hesitating?

Because it felt like a betrayal. And that was that.

“Sylvia,” she said, as kindly as she could, “I can’t lie to him.”

“No,” her friend agreed. “Only, you don’t have to bring it up, if he doesn’t mention it. That’s not a lie.”

“And if he does mention it?”

Sylvia held up three fingers in the scout salute—and she, Jemma recalled, had actually been a Girl Guide—and kept them as steady as her even gaze. “Tell him the truth. I don’t want to cause any roughness between you and Fitz, even if it creates more with Mark.”

Jemma bit her lip, staring down at the rats rolling over each other in their play. A compromise? Hardly that. The likelihood that Fitz wouldn’t ask was slim to none, particularly as they hadn’t had a chance to talk at any length since her first visit to the Soviet club. Was it fair to agree, knowing she would end by doing the exact opposite of what Sylvia wished? No matter. Fitz was, and would always be, her first priority.

“All right,” she said. “I can agree to that.”

Sylvia pressed her lips together, using her two first fingers to knock their notes into some semblance of order. “Thank you, Jemma.”

She left shortly after that, all apologies for having to ask a favor and run but nearly at the limit of her lunch hour. Jemma looked up the clock in surprise. Between her maddening work and Sylvia’s visit, she hadn’t even stopped to think of eating. If Fitz was here, she thought with a quick smile, he never would have allowed it. He would have cajoled her into stepping out to fish-and-chips or taking more time for a proper meal, stating firmly as he settled her fur over her shoulders that clearly, she was cross and unsuccessful because no one could work well on an empty stomach. And he might be right. Suddenly coming to a decision, she threw open her lab coat and tossed it over a chair, entirely forgoing her usual leaving-the-lab procedures. It had been a difficult day for more than one reason; time she did something about it.

Andrews waved her through the outer office distractedly, two bright spots of color high on his cheekbones as he spoke firmly into the telephone: “yes, sir, I—no, sir, he hasn’t—Mr. Fitz-Simmons has been—yes, sir, I understand—”

Poor Andrews, she thought fleetingly, and then she was in the office and leaning back against the closed door and drinking in the sight of her husband like she had been wandering in the desert for forty years. Resting his cheek against the heel of his hand, he had the furrow between his eyes that meant he was concentrating; one hand flew across a page, smudging with the side of his little finger. “I still have fifteen minutes, Andrews,” he said without looking up. “I have to get this done if I want to see Jemma today at all.”

One of her projects, no doubt, the darling man. As though she wouldn’t be glad to see him regardless of whether he bore cunning devices in hand or not. “Or you could just look up.”

The smile began on his face before he raised his head, jumping from his eyes to his mouth like a flame. Even at a distance, the brightness rivaled Piccadilly Circus. “I could,” he said slowly, “but the anticipation—”

He felt her coming and prepared, spinning out his desk chair enough to give her space to land in his lap and opening his arms wide to catch her. “Oh, _do_ shut up,” she murmured before kissing him hungrily, holding his face in both her hands. Ah, yes, _this_ was what she needed; the tight muscles in her shoulders and the knot of irritation in her chest were already dissipating, dissolving under his tender ministrations. And then he wrenched himself away from her mouth to kiss playfully at the junction of her jaw and neck, growling “nothing tastes as good as your rotten perfume,” and she very nearly lost the ability to hold herself upright at all.

Several delicious moments later, she pulled back enough to rest their foreheads together, giving them a chance to catch their breath. “Let’s not do that again,” she said, gasping a little.

“What, kiss in my office? I’m rather fond of it, though.”

“Go so long apart,” she said, unwilling to allow it to be a joke. “I’ve missed you.”

His arms tightened around her, and he brushed a chaste kiss across her cheek. “Me too. Even though we saw each other—”

“—we haven’t really. Yes.”

“But tomorrow’s Thursday,” he said, eyes brightening, “which means, Andrews tells me, that my schedule is a blank swath of space. That’s why I was trying to get this done.”

For the first time, she turned her attention to the bits and bobs spread over his desk. She had assumed from his activity when she came in that her projects remained in the drafting stage, but there in the center of the desk sat a small, round object that resembled nothing so much as a dinner roll-sized fencing mask. Wrapping one arm around Fitz’s shoulder, she picked the device up with her free hand and let it rest in her palm. “This is for the exterminators?”

“Yeah.” Using the hand not resting snuggly around her waist, he flipped the prototype over and slid back the bottom hatch. “You put each of the agents into one of these compartments, and then you just shake it upside down a few times”—he closed it and demonstrated—“and they should go through the little holes to combine and form the gas, which will seep through the mesh, see?”

“Brilliant,” she said, running her hand through his hair. “As usual.”

He leaned into her petting like a cat, almost purring. “It has a myriad of other applications, I think. Any combination you like, I expect.”

“Unless you needed heat to form the vapor.”

“I could adjust that.” Taking it from her, he moved her to the crook of his elbow to have the use of both hands. “If I contained a coil between two plates—”

But she couldn’t resist the way his mouth tweaked up at the corner as he pondered a way to make this elegant little thing even more wonderful, and she took it back and placed it carefully on the desk. Using the foot still on the ground to shove them away, she settled herself more firmly on his lap. “I’m sure you could,” she said. “But not now. This is my luncheon.”

“Your dessert, surely,” he said, eyes twinkling. She meant exactly what she said—seeing him was sustenance—but she let it pass in favor of kissing him again.

“Mm, Fitz,” she said after several minutes, leaving him dazed and blinking slowly, “I forgot. Your mother’s gone this evening. Most of the night, probably. I don’t suppose you could possibly leave the office early today?”

She trailed a finger down the front of his shirt, purposefully looking up through her eyelashes despite her higher position. Without looking away or letting go, he used his heels to drag the chair back to the desk and pressed the intercom button insistently.

“Andrews?”

The secretary’s cool tones responded tinnily.

“What have I got this afternoon?”

A rustling of pages, then, “after this meeting, sir, nothing.”

Fitz let the button up and inclined his head enough to look at her. “An hour at most. I’ll push for three-quarters of an hour. All right?”

It seemed eons, but she nodded and got up. “I’ll clean up the lab, then. Would you like to go for supper somewhere? I’ll manage the reservations?”

“A nice dinner out with my beautiful wife? I’ll never argue,” he said, snagging her skirt and pulling her back. “Why’re you leaving? He’s not here yet.”

“I left a mess, Fitz, and we have all night,” she laughed. “And all tomorrow, too. Except—”

“What?”

The twisted nerves made themselves known again—why, Jemma couldn’t say, since she had every confidence that she would shortly be telling Fitz everything. “Except, I was asked—that is, a friend wondered if I would be available to dine tomorrow night. I said that we had arranged to—”

“Yeah, no, that’s good. You should go. I don’t mind.”

“—but of course I’m sure I could—what?”

She stared at him, uncertain that she had heard correctly.

Standing, he placed his hands on his hips and nodded firmly, looking down at the device on the desk. “You ought to go. I had Aaron last night—”

“ _We_ had Aaron,” she corrected, “and that was for the investigation, so it isn’t the same. Anyway, it’s not tit-for-tat, Fitz.”

“No, no, of course not, but there’s no reason why you shouldn’t go out with your friends. I have the Trio—”

“So I can go when you’re at rehearsal, like I did this week.” She had no idea if Mark would accept that, but she couldn’t bring herself to care; any moment now Fitz would remember what she had left him for this week, and then the rest would come out, and then they would determine a better course of action together. Grabbing her left wrist in her right hand, she waited for him to unfold himself and begin the conversation for real. Until this very instant, she hadn’t realized how much she needed to discuss it.

Instead, he turned even further away. “There’s no need for that, Jemma, honestly. I have plenty of work to catch up on. And, actually—” He pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. Her heart stuttered in her chest. What could he not just _say_? “I’ve got, um, a meeting I’ve been trying to schedule and we haven’t been able to settle a time. Tomorrow night would work for the other party, if you wouldn’t mind sharing me.”

She brought her arms up and clasped them tightly about her, warding off the sudden chill that swept through the office. It must be Whitehall, or he wouldn’t be so guarded, but why wouldn’t he just tell her so? She understood the need for discretion, and she wasn’t so jealous of his time that she wouldn’t understand putting off their plans for a matter of national importance. This walled-off behavior startled her, giving her the impression of sudden vertigo, and she scrabbled to find her Fitz in the foreign form of the man before her. “Oh, well,” she said, trying desperately to keep her voice even, “I always mind sharing you, but if you’d rather—”

He turned abruptly, the crease in his forehead shifting from pained to concerned as he placed his hands over her elbows. “Unless you don’t _want_ to go, Simmons, and you’re trying to use me as an excuse. In that case, of course, I refuse to let you off, our plans are sacred, whoever this friend is can go boil their head—”

She laughed in spite of herself, shaking her head, and his face smoothed into the soft tenderness she was most used to seeing. Tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear, he followed the slide of his palm with a kiss. “I’d rather be with you than anything, Simmons. If I could get out of it, I would—can you believe that?”

“Yes,” she said, then repeated it when he dropped his eyes, unconvinced. “Yes, Fitz, of course I can. I’d rather not go to this dinner, either, but we aren’t on our honeymoon anymore and we’ll just have to have stiff upper lips about it.”

“Not _too_ stiff, please,” he said, running his thumb along the aforementioned feature.

With difficulty, she remained sober. “What I don’t understand, though—”

They both jumped as the intercom sounded shrilly, laughing at their own startled shrieks. “Work demands my attention,” Fitz said, running his hands up and down her arms regretfully, “but put a bookmark in, yeah? We’ll talk later?”

“Absolutely.” She stretched up to buss his cheek. “Make it as quick as you can.”

Fitz nodded, unable to keep his smile from canting the direction of her lips. “Quick as I can.”

As the door closed behind her, he heaved a relieved sigh and nearly collapsed over the desk. Dodged that bullet—for the moment, at least. From Jemma’s perplexed eyebrows and firmly-set mouth, he knew she wouldn’t allow his vague responses to be the final word on the subject; the buzzer only afforded him a brief reprieve. But he had time now. No doubt this meeting, one of the open proposals he agreed to in a mistaken burst of generosity, would be as mind-numbingly dull as all the rest had been. He had to have something to make him look interested, after all, so why not use the time wisely and work out a believable not-quite lie for his wife?

Unfortunately for Fitz, this meeting proved the exception to the rule. The young man’s ideas about creating cold artificially sparked a dozen more in his head, and only when he heard himself say “I’d like to get my wife’s opinion on this—she’s a biochemist” did he think to check the time. The hands had ticked their way to the very limits of his self-imposed time frame, so he hustled Mr. Gill out as quickly as polite, directed Andrews to set up a proper appointment to discuss further collaboration, and escaped back to the office to sweep the Exterminator’s Mate into his attaché. He wouldn’t be back in the office tomorrow, but there was no reason not to work on it at home. Jemma wouldn’t mind.

Grabbing his attaché, he took his hat and coat from the tree and flicked out the light. Andrews stood quickly as Fitz moved into the office, demanding attention in his own obsequious way. “Sir, I’ve scheduled Mr. Gill for next Friday. Did you require anything else?”

“Could you please ring my wife and inform her I’ve finished?”

Andrews’s voice floated out after him. “Certainly, sir.”

Mind torn between pondering the best conductors for those sub-zero coils Mr. Gill described and wondering where Jemma had decided to dine, he went halfway to the lift before turning with a groan to go back to the office. Wouldn’t that be just perfect, if he forgot? “Andrews, one more thing, I need you to ring Mr. Smith—”

“He’s been ringing all day, sir,” Andrews said, looking more human than Fitz had ever seen him, “I expect to hear from him every moment.”

Poor Andrews, he thought fleetingly. “Well, when you speak to him, then. Tell him from seven tomorrow. He’ll understand.”

“Yes, sir.” Andrews wrote a memorandum, relief clear on his face. “I will remain until my usual time tonight, should you require my services.”

“Thank you, Andrews.”

He resumed his journey, a little less light-hearted than before. A whole, beautiful night and day with Jemma stretched ahead of him, but at the end awaited a decidedly less enjoyable tryst, which he would have to go the aforesaid night and day without allowing Jemma to know anything about it despite the clear truth that she had a right to be told. Jabbing at the lift buttons with a scowl, he cursed the entire situation. All he wanted was to love his wife and help his country. Why must the two things be mutually exclusive? Why had he agreed to it, anyway?

The door slid open on Jemma’s floor. Still storming, he went to step out without acknowledging the figure waiting on the other side, who ought to know to get out of his path. Until, that is, a hand came up to grip each of his upper arms and a scent of lavender filled the air, and he came out of his fog already smiling. “I was supposed to come fetch you.”

Jemma shrugged, attempting nonchalance. “You were taking so long, I got tired of waiting. I thought I’d come see what was so much more interesting than I am.”

“Nothing,” he said, making room for her in the lift, and then, “didn’t Andrews phone?”

“He did! Don’t chew out poor Andrews.” Laughing, she took one of his hands in hers and used her other thumb to smooth out the crease in his forehead. “I had finished and saw no reason to delay, that’s all. If he hadn’t I’d still be there playing with my rats.”

He barely suppressed a shudder. “They doing anything special today?”

“Aside from falling into a Snow White-type sleep for an hour before waking up and behaving as though nothing had happened, no.”

“You didn’t have to—”

“Of _course_ not,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Don’t you think I know that I could never kiss you again if I once kissed a rat? It wouldn’t be worth it.”

“In that case,” he said, and ducked his head down to press his lips to hers in the brief moment between the _ding_ of the indicator and the opening of the door. Transferring her hand to the crook of his elbow, he tried to assume an acceptable level of husbandly affection. “Where are we eating? I hope it’s early, since I haven’t had lunch _or_ tea.”

“Nor have I. Yes, it is early; we have a table at Boulestin’s at six.”

“Excellent,” he said, his mouth already watering. “I’m so pleased with that choice, I won’t even gripe about having to dress for it.”

“You certainly won’t,” she said. “Besides, there’s hours between now and then. I can think of much better ways to fill the time than complaining, can’t you?”

Yes, he could.


	12. Fine French Dining

Proving yet again their partnership’s ability to meet any challenge, they arrived at Boulestin’s at two minutes til six, coiffed and pressed and looking for all the world as though they had spent the afternoon at the races, rather than in various states of undress strenuously debating the feasibility and practicality of splitting the atom. The maître d’ led them to a table in the center of the room, apologizing for its exposure and noise.

“That’s all right,” Jemma said as she slipped into the chair Fitz held out for her, “we’re quite capable of carrying on conversation whatever the volume, and we don’t mind people looking at us.”

The maître d’ no doubt believed she only said that to make the best of a bad situation, but Fitz knew it was true. Sitting across from his dazzling wife Fitz felt as though they were their own world. The brisk breeze of her laugh, the sun of her smile, the waterfall of her words, the grounding richness of her eyes saying _I love you. I love you_ —he could plant himself right here and never wish to be anywhere else. The excellent meal passed by unheeded. He didn’t even realize he was eating until he got a mouthful of caviar off the _supreme du sole_ and interrupted his story with a coughing fit.

Jemma pushed over the water carafe and rested her chin in her hand, at once sympathetic and amused. “Trip would be annoyed that you ruined his story with your wheezing.”

“Until I gave him his own mouthful of salt bombs,” he sputtered, reaching out to pour himself a large glass.

“I don’t know,” she mused, “He might have the poise to handle it with aplomb. He’s that kind of man. No, Fitz, don’t look at me like that, you know perfectly well you’re the only man for me and I wouldn’t change you for anything.”

Although his heart threatened to float off into the atmosphere, he spoke casually. “Well, and I suppose Trip’s harem—”

“Fitz!”

“—all right, his fan club, then. I suppose it would be exhausting. To be nice to all those girls without giving any of them the wrong idea. I like my lot better. Less work.”

“Oh really?” she said, arching her eyebrow and her tone.

But his mind was already four steps down a different path and he frowned in quick self-chastisement. “Simmons, you didn’t tell me how the club was, did you? Your dinner with Miss Forbes and whatever her rotten fiancé is called?”

All at once she grew very still, only the flash of light off her ring betraying any movement. Then, shaking off the mood like a fly, she pushed up the corners of her mouth in a pained smile. “I only said it was horrible, and it was. You were right about Mark. He’s dreadful.”

“I’m sorry.” And he meant it. Not only that she hadn’t enjoyed herself—he knew she wouldn’t—but for Sylvia, who reminded him so much of Jemma that he wished for her happiness by reflex. “I suppose you couldn’t—”

“I can’t do _anything_ ,” she burst out. “The poor girl is breaking her heart over him and he simply doesn’t care, the swine, trampling all over her pearls and she’s content to just lie there in the muck—”

“Stop, Jemma, is she the pearl or is the pearl her feelings?”

“Ugh, Fitz! Does it matter?”

“Well, no,” he allowed. But his interjection had its desired effect, and a bit of the fire died from her voice, if not her gaze.

“It’s sickening, Fitz. She’s such a dear, and he treats her so poorly, all smug and sneering. I want to vomit whenever he speaks to her.”

The venom dripping from her words told Fitz everything he needed to know, and his hand clenched in spite of himself. Uncurling it carefully, he risked the abrasive tongues of their fellow diners and laid it over the small white fist strangling her fork. “It is frustrating,” he agreed as evenly as he could manage, “and if I ever meet him I’ll cheerfully punch his face. But you don’t have to see him again, do you? Can’t you be Sylvia’s friend without him?”

She stared at their hands, her hair hiding all her face apart from her slightly wobbling jaw. “Arguably,” she said in a voice so low he had to strain to hear it. “Only, Fitz—”

A discreet cough husked above them. Their simultaneous startled glances revealed the maître d’, clutching his notebook apologetically. “I beg your pardon madam, sir, but Mr. and Mrs. Evans send their compliments, and ask if they might join you for the next course. I realize this is highly irregular.”

It took Fitz far longer than it should have to identify Iris and Budgie, even with the waiter’s polite indication. Jemma, forever cleverer than he, grasped the situation instantly and nodded, already shoving around dishes to make more room. “Yes, of course, we’ll be delighted.”

As the waiter scurried off to arrange it, she turned to him with her lip caught between her teeth. “We will be delighted, won’t we? Only we really ought to—”

“—seize the opportunity, yeah,” he agreed, nodding fervently. “If they want to talk to us we shouldn’t say no.”

“We can ask about if they knew about the will.”

“Larry’s row?”

“Oh, Fitz, who gave the interview in the paper.”

“Right,” he said, patting his pocket to make sure he had his notebook. “And this will be the first time I’ve met Mr. Evans, so there might be something there.”

She looked somewhere over his shoulder, tracking something as she responded. “I wouldn’t count on it; I’m not sure there’s _anything_ there with Mr. Evans. If it were possible, he might be made up of alcohol instead of water—Mrs. Evans! Such a pleasure to see you both.”

Fitz got to his feet and shook Iris’s hand, professing himself pleased to meet her husband at long last, and they all sat down together: Iris, as collected as though she hadn’t just inserted herself in the middle of a tête-à-tête; Jemma, clearly trying to decide on the perfect polite question to launch a series of impolite ones; Budgie, already clamoring for another bottle of wine; him, sharply regretting yet another thing to keep him from enjoying his wife’s company in peace. This would be, he rather felt, an extremely interesting course.

“How lovely of you to think to join us,” Jemma said, her smile welcoming but limited. “A happy coincidence that we were all here at the same time.”

Iris took the wineglass from her husband’s hand and sipped it, holding the stem lightly between two fingers. “On the contrary, Mrs. Fitz-Simmons. I rang your office to find out where you would be tonight.”

Fitz’s gaze collided with his wife’s startled one. That wasn’t terrifying at all. “Oh, really?” she asked weakly. “What can we do for you?”

Setting the glass down well out of Budgie’s easy reach, Iris interlaced her fingers and rested her chin atop them. “Word’s got round, as I’m sure you know. Our attempts at keeping your inquiries private were in vain.”

As Jemma had been the one to set the terms with Iris, Fitz let her field the implied accusation. If he scooted his chair a little closer to his wife’s, he thought it was subtle enough to remain non-threatening. “We have been as discreet as possible, Mrs. Evans,” Jemma said. “I hope you aren’t here to chastise us.”

“Lord, no.” Iris’s eyebrows raised over her horn-rims. “I ought to have known it was too much to expect with Daphne in on it. She’s told everyone. Including our laundress. Including, I am sorry to say, our mother.”

“Your mother?”

“Oh, dear.”

Iris nodded, grimacing a little. “Yes, she did not take it well, I’m afraid. Not at first. I believe I mentioned how opposed to the idea she was?”

“Lord!” Budgie snorted, surprising them all. “An understatement if there ever was one. Like a fishwife going after the woman who—”

“It wasn’t like that at all, darling,” Iris interrupted firmly. Fitz bit back a smile as Jemma dropped her dancing eyes to the table. Fortunately, the waiter brought their next course before anyone could continue the conversation, and the bustle of description and filling glasses and placing everyone’s elbows at this table for two now hosting four served to close out the topic. When Iris began again it was though Budgie had never spoken. “Once we explained our reasoning, however, she was more willing to entertain the idea. She has agreed that you may continue your inquiries.”

“Oh,” Jemma said, tone round with surprise. “Well, that’s good, then?”

She darted a glance towards him, the question clear: _Is it good?_ He didn’t know the answer. Until Iris mentioned the failure of their one requirement, he hadn’t considered not seeing the thing through to its end, but for the several minutes in which he thought their investigation was about to be forcibly closed he had the impression of a weight being lifted from his shoulders. Whatever this was with Whitehall had worked its way into the crannies of his mind; between it and Jemma—and it vs. Jemma—he lacked the mental energy to care very much about the sad death of Stafford Osbourne. You could only keep so many balls in the air before dropping one, and he already had an uneasy feeling of looming danger. Perhaps it would be good to let this ball go.

Seemingly oblivious to their hesitation, Iris left no room for disagreement in her answer: “Yes, it is. With Mother’s approval, you have far more weight behind you.”

“Not more than the police, surely,” he heard himself say. Jemma laughed, pretending it was a joke for their dining companions’s sake, but he could see her agreement in the firm line of her lips.

“If you’ll recall,” Iris said coolly, “I wished to leave the inquiry in the police’s hands to begin with. You were merely oil on Daphne’s troubled waters. But now you’re here, and now that Mother has given her blessing, you’ve been granted legitimacy.”

“How consoling,” Jemma said, matching Iris’s tone. Sitting up a bit straighter, Fitz tried to display support for his wife and disapproval of Iris in the same facial expression.

“But nobody’s calling you bastards, of course!”

They turned in unison to Budgie Evans, whom, to be honest, Fitz had nearly forgotten was even there. Pausing his cheerful plying of knife and fork, Budgie seemed to realize he had said something wrong and looked to his wife worriedly, his light frill of hair flopping over his forehead. “That is, even Larry won’t go against Mother Osbourne. He won’t want to row with her, too, after Father Osbourne—”

“Darling,” Iris cut in with a firm hand to his wrist, “Mr. and Mrs. Fitz-Simmons don’t care about all that.”

“No, please.”

“Actually, we do.”

Budgie’s nearly-invisible eyebrows went up. “You really do it!”

Jemma sent Fitz the slightest hint of a disbelieving eyeroll before screwing on her politest smile. “Only, I’m afraid we must care. Anything that gives us insight into your father will be beneficial, especially if you wish us to pursue the idea that he was intentionally murdered. We have to know him to know why someone might want to kill him.”

“Larry didn’t want to kill him.”

Iris’s certainty surprised Fitz. Was it merely refusal to face the ugly possibility, or did she have some other reason for confidence? Across the table, Budgie shook his head fervently. “Not old Larry, not anymore.”

“Anymore,” Jemma repeated, “then there was—”

“My brother never wanted to kill our father,” Iris said, eyes sharp behind her glasses. “This infamous row has been blown entirely out of proportion. They had a disagreement, that’s all, and Larry’s been very busy lately. He was away for a bit, and when he came back he was busy. There was no estrangement.”

_I rather doubt it_ , he told Jemma, and she silently agreed. “We didn’t mean to suggest that your brother was responsible for your father’s death,” she said, “but you must see that _what_ they quarreled about sheds some light on your father’s character. One doesn’t have a drag-out row with one’s father over something that doesn’t matter very much to both parties.”

His sweet, naïve wife. Of course people had drag-out rows over all kinds of things, vital or trivial; as soon as pride got involved the simplest quarrel turned ugly. He was a bit taken aback that Iris accepted Jemma’s statement at face value, only pursing her lips and shaking her head. “Whatever it was about, you’ll have to ask Larry. He hasn’t spoken of it to any of us. But I don’t believe it was anything that terrible. If it was as dreadful as people say, wouldn’t Father have written Larry out of his will?”

“I don’t know,” Jemma said, “would he?”

“Certainly threatened often enough,” Budgie mumbled before his wife could stop him.

Iris’s patience was only a thin veneer over her anger as she spoke, deliberately enunciating. “But he didn’t. Father wasn’t vindictive; he didn’t punish you unduly. Look what he did for Sylvia, and they actually hadn’t spoken in years.”

Budgie pushed his lips out like a petulant child, his face suddenly dark. “Don’t remind me.”

Because, Fitz remembered, Sylvia had been given her money outright, rather than in trust. Even considering the much smaller amount of the legacy, it must have been a slap in the face that Stafford Osbourne would entrust anything to a girl he hadn’t spoken with in years that he wouldn’t trust his children with. He glanced at Jemma, wondering if they should play dumb about the will. If Iris was already sensitive towards the barest hint of accusation, the knowledge that they had snooped in her father’s private papers might lead to a very ugly scene indeed. _Follow my lead_ , she answered, and he gave a tiny nod. “Oh, yes,” she said brightly, “I was so happy for her. Such a pleasant surprise. I had always thought that people knew when they were named in someone’s will.”

A _blatant_ lie, and he spoke quickly, hoping to draw Iris’s attention away from Jemma’s uneasy squirm. “Depends on when he drew it up, probably. If she was teaching in the north it wouldn’t have been convenient to come down just for that. If Mr. Osbourne even had a will reading party at all.”

“Not a very good idea, what?” Budgie said around a rather large mouthful. “Or perhaps someone would want to bump him off because of it. Not that it would have done us any good in the end.”

“Darling.”

But Budgie appeared to have had enough of being shushed—that, or his indignation was stronger than his desire to keep his wife happy. Swallowing so quickly his eyes teared up, he stabbed his knife in Iris’s direction and jabbed her with a tone twice as sharp. “What good is all that money if we can’t touch it, eh? Why give it to us if someone else is sitting on it like a dragon? It’s damned cruel.”

Iris pressed her lips together, two spots of red blooming in the exact center of her cheeks. “Trusts are perfectly common,” she explained to Jemma, almost desperately, “especially with such a large sum of money as my father left. We are more than amply provided for.”

“Of course,” Jemma murmured kindly. Too distraught to notice, Iris missed the eloquent look Jemma sent him. So whoever held the money in trust had tight hold of the purse strings, did they? That would make it difficult for anyone who needed a large lump sum quickly. Fitz made a mental note to ask Aaron how much the interest would be on **£** 5000, and how grand a lifestyle the amount would “amply” support.

“God knows what Larry does with his money, but Daphne has no need of hers; Mother supports her and all her hobbies. We’ve none of us any reason to complain.”

“He might have said, is all,” Budgie insisted, sloshing the last of the wine into his glass. “I’d wager Mrs. Fitz-Simmons won’t be getting her money in trust. I know Mr. Fitz-Simmons didn’t get his.”

“Most of the money is tied to the business,” he said, starting to curl around the edges with the heat radiating from Iris’s burning eyes. Her glare was so hot he half-expected her glasses to melt. “Which was rather a headache for the death duties.”

Jemma nodded, watching warily for the spark that would set off an explosion. “Perhaps it’s better that you didn’t know, Mr. Evans. The police were suspicious of Fitz at first because he had such an enormous motive, but since he didn’t know he stood to inherit that did away with that. Of course you could guess you would inherit, but you didn’t know. This sauce is really excellent, isn’t it? I’m not sure I’ve had this before, have you, Fitz?”

Smooth as silk, he followed her to safer ground. “No, I don’t think so. But my French is so dreadful I might have ordered it a hundred times and not realized. Just point, that’s my method.” Iris and Budgie, both brooding like vultures, managed half of a smile between them. “Mrs. Evans, I understand you grew up in India. I’ve never been, but I’m passionately fond of monkeys. Are there many monkeys there?”

She roused herself enough to respond. “I’m afraid I don’t remember. We were kept fairly close to the bungalow. Larry might know; he went out with our father among the natives.”

“Yet another thing to ask Larry about,” he mused aloud, “and we’ve never once laid eyes on him.”

“One almost doubts he exists,” Jemma said with a light laugh, picking up his thought, and she leaned slightly forward before thinking better of it and attempting to relax back into her chair. He could almost hear her reminding herself to be nonchalant. “Are we ever going to meet the elusive eldest Osbourne?”

The question seemed harmless, and Fitz was about to join Jemma’s merriment until Iris set her glass down with enough force that Fitz half expected the stem to snap in her hand. Her answer came through bared teeth. “Am I my brother’s keeper?”

Fitz sucked in a breath, unsure how to respond. He placed the quotation immediately, thanks to his mother’s careful training: Cain to God after the murder of his brother Abel. A defiant snarl meant to hide a great sin. What in the name of all things holy had they stumbled upon?

Smiling as warmly as an iceberg, Jemma curled her hands around the arms of her chair. Her knuckles were white-capped mountains. “I beg your pardon, only you were so insistent that we not bother any of the family. Which, may I add, has severely handicapped our inquiries. If you’re willing to lift that restriction, we might be able to actually make progress.”

Budgie laughed aloud, reaching for Iris’s glass. “But that’s what this whole thing is about! Do you think we normally dine at Boulestin’s? Iris didn’t want to do this over the phone.”

“Do what?” Fitz asked when it became clear that Jemma wasn’t going to.

Similarly observing his own wife’s tenseness, Budgie turned to Fitz with an air of manly briskness that was entirely undone by the way he smacked his lips together after finishing his drink. “Mother Osbourne wants to meet with you. She said to have you come on Friday. She has some things to tell you, apparently.”

“I expect thank you,” Iris grated out. Then she stood, as sharp and quick as the _snick_ of scissors, and put her napkin firmly on her chair. “Darling, I don’t feel very well. Will you go settle our bill, please?”

Her husband stood as well, shoving his hands awkwardly into the pockets of his dinner jacket. “Of course, darling. Er, this bottle of wine was yours, I think, Mr. Fitz-Simmons? I’ll just have them put it on your bill.”

He had not ordered it, nor had he drunk any of it, but as Budgie was already halfway to the maitre d’, Fitz decided it wasn’t worth the effort to chase after him, although he too had risen to his feet when Iris got up. The very top of Jemma’s head radiated disapproval. No doubt her sense of justice revolted at the idea of paying for something they hadn’t enjoyed, but Fitz couldn’t bring himself to care. He felt rather like a washcloth hung over the tub at the end of a bath.  

Iris sighed, in apparent emotional agreement. Tiny crevices appeared around her mouth, and her hands shook as she reached for her bag and fumbled around inside. “I’m gasping for a smoke. Please don’t mind my nerves.”    

As she lit up, Fitz nudged Jemma’s shoulder, drawing her gaze to meet his. To anyone else, she would have been inscrutable, but he knew how to ignore the blank face and dive beneath the disgust and residual anger and tension to find the answer he sought. Placing his hand on the back of Jemma’s chair for support, he spoke for them both. “Of course we’ll come see Mrs. Osbourne. We wanted to do it before now, but we didn’t think we’d be welcome. What time on Friday?”

“The morning,” Iris said, taking a long draw of her cigarette. “She’s always better in the mornings. Perhaps ten o’clock?”

“Ten,” Jemma said. Then, surprising him—though it shouldn’t have, really—she got to her feet and held out a white-gloved truce. “I know it’s very unpleasant for you, Mrs. Evans. We understand what you’re going through, truly.”

The smoke rising from the cigarette quavered before Iris’s eyes, and she took the stub between two fingers and jabbed it out in the middle of her dinner plate. “I’m sure,” she said, slowly, deliberately, “I don’t know what you mean. What could be unpleasant about dinner with friends?”

And that was all any of them said until Budgie came back to collect his wife and sneak a dinner roll off the table.

Collapsing back into their seats as the Evans left, Fitz and Jemma looked at each other, utterly silent. There seemed to be too much to say to even begin. “What was that, Fitz?” Jemma asked finally, plunging her hand below the tablecloth to reach for him unseen. “Why did she turn feral?”

He shook his head, at a loss. “I don’t know.”

“Lady Hermione said Larry and Iris couldn’t have been further apart ‘if they hated each other’—do they hate each other? Or does she hate him? But that doesn’t make sense, because if she did—”

“If she did, she wouldn’t be defending him from accusations.”

“Right.” Her thumb rubbed over the back of his hand. “We got the answers we wanted about the will, but I almost think we have more questions now. And we still don’t know why Larry and Mr. Osbourne fought.”

“The great mystery of our time,” he joked, trying to smooth out the creases in her forehead. He didn’t quite succeed, but they shifted from worried to amused as she squeezed his hand and released it with a sigh.

“Perhaps Mrs. Osbourne will know? Odd as the rest of it was, that’s a huge step forwards.”

Details about what happened that night, insight into her children, knowledge of the will and of her husband specifically—Fitz had no doubt Mrs. Osbourne could be a great resource, if she chose. But would she choose? he wondered, and quickly tossed that thought aside. “Between Mrs. Osbourne and Aaron, the case is looking up. Only I’m not sure what there is for us to do now. We seem to be in a bit of a waiting game.”

She nodded agreement. “Which is lovely, because we can enjoy our Thursday without feeling as though we ought to be doing something else. There isn’t anything else to be done.”

“Excellent,” he said, allowing his mind to meander blissfully through a catalogue of images. Perhaps a late breakfast, followed by some work in the lab, and a drive in Rosalind out to—

Jemma heard his gasp and set her fork down quickly, all concern. “What is it?”

Pinching the bridge of his nose, he worked mightily to hold back a groan. “We said Friday at ten for Mrs. Osbourne, didn’t we?” She nodded. So much for that. “I’m supposed to be touring the south factories on Friday.”

“The south factories where—?”

Where they were manufacturing the many disparate pieces of the Stark Collaboration, yes. The light of understanding dimmed with disappointment as she understood the importance of keeping the engagement. “And I’ve got a meeting to go over the results on Monday, early, so I can’t postpone. Saturday, perhaps? The factory manager won’t be pleased with that, but—”

“What about tomorrow?”

He stopped mid-sentence to stare at her, his daydreams popping like champagne bubbles. “But Thursday is our day,” he said, hearing his childish whine but not caring enough to stop it. “The schedule’s cleared and all.”

“I know, Fitz, but.” One finger traced patterns into the tablecloth, and when she looked up she had on the face of a martyr. “We’ll just swap it. I don’t mind. Since we have other engagements tomorrow night anyway, we can just make Friday our Thursday this week?”

But Friday would be taken up with investigation, he thought petulantly, rather than the unhurried happiness of doing whatever they liked. So much for late breakfast. Then, feeling the scowl burrowing its way from his face to his mood, he stopped it in its tracks. How selfish could he be? Even ignoring the literally world-impacting nature of the Project, their investigation dealt with life-and-death matters and deserved priority over playing truant with Jemma. He might rather pretend the world didn’t exist, but he couldn’t. Not really. His shoulders fell as he sighed.

Rightly reading his agreement, Jemma kicked his ankle under the table and waited until he met her eyes to offer a conciliatory smile. “We had this afternoon unlooked for, at least, and we’ll have the rest of the evening.”

“That’s true,” he said, brightening a little. “Let me just ring Andrews and have him change the appointment so we don’t have to worry about it, and then we’re all each other’s for the rest of the night.”

“And how do you plan to take advantage of that, Mr. Fitz-Simmons?”

He raised one hand to call the waiter over, casual as anything. “Well, first I’m going to finish this very fine meal. It’s a pity to waste it. You know good food is the only part of being rich I really like.”

“I know,” she said, eyes dancing. “And then?”

He tried to keep his mouth steady and failed miserably. How could he not, when hers had curved into that flirtatious bow of contentment and mischief? Reaching out, he plucked his wineglass from the table and held it out, waiting for her to match him. “And then,” he said, clinking their glasses together, “I rather think we left some business unfinished this afternoon. To nuclear fission.”

“To _fusion_ , I think you mean.” And she laughed at the color his face turned.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Boulestin's is a real place and you can still go there! I haven't. But you can.


	13. Meanwhile, On the Other Side of Town

In the end, they went to the cinema after dinner—while they intentionally and deliberately avoided crime thrillers, they enjoyed swoony romantic historical films and adored Mickey Mouse. The next day, however, Fitz found his thoughts returning to the newsreel more than to either of the main features. Jemma had grasped his hand tightly as the images sprawled across the scene—wounded Spanish civilians, Hermann Goring spitting and screaming at a rally, Mussolini’s smug face watching his army on review. The pictures gave new weight to the factory tours he’d done at least once a month for the last year. God willing, they would never have to use the massive planes or ships; he would be happy if the reactor-powered pistols and machine guns never saw the light of day. But if required, if the storm that had been threatening broke about their ears, if the powder-keg of Europe fell victim to a spark, at least England would be ready. And he, Fitz, had helped make it so.

That knowledge in mind, he awaited Mr. Smith’s arrival with only a small amount of trepidation. Protecting the country and its people was of primary importance, as Jemma herself had reminded him last night on the way home from the cinema: “It’s good,” she had said, “that you didn’t sell Macpherson to Tony Stark. I wish there was more I could do to help.” And wasn’t that nearly the same as permission? If Jemma knew about Mr. Smith’s request, she would of course agree without pause to give him what he wanted. No, he felt no guilt about that. His inability to eat the tray of sandwiches Andrews had ordered in before departing for the night only meant that he wasn’t hungry enough to stop his pacing. It had nothing to do with the slithery worm of worry sitting in his gut.

A noise sounded in the outer office. Fitz moved even before he consciously categorized the sound: a creaky scrape, a metallic rattle—someone was poking around in Andrews’s desk. Flinging the door open, he had just enough time to wonder exactly what he would do with a burglar before he recognized the figure stooped over the desk. “Mr. Smith!” He shoved his hands in his pockets to avoid pressing them to his pneumatic hammer heart. “I didn’t realize you had arrived.”

The man straightened, the beam of his torch hitting Fitz just past his left ear. “As I wished, Mr. Fitz. Simmons.”

What was it about the man that gave Fitz the same feeling as the Reptile House at the zoo? Was it the set of his eyes? The way his edges seemed to blur into shadow? “If you want something,” he said, trying to keep his voice even, “you only have to ask.”

“I can’t know what I want without looking.” Mr. Smith flicked his wrist, sending the light in a quick arc across the office. “Shall we?”

Fitz gave a curt nod and stalked towards the outer door, hoping he gave off an authoritative air. Macpherson was his domain, after all, and he was a grown man; he wasn’t going to cower before bullies. Halfway there, however, he had to stop shamefacedly. “One moment, please. I’ve just got to get my case from my office.”

“Take your time.”

Wouldn’t he just love _that_ , Fitz scoffed, hurrying back to his desk and flinging things willy-nilly into his case, including the framed wedding picture he kept on the sideboard. He had no doubts that Smith’s lackeys would be swarming over the place as soon as he left, and, foolishly, he didn’t want them leering at Jemma. Having their paws all over her work was enough of a betrayal for one evening.

Mr. Smith hadn’t moved from the middle of the room—to all appearances, at least—and he followed Fitz to Jemma’s lab almost meekly, only the prickle at the back of Fitz’s neck speaking to anything else. That, and the silent way two small, shriveled men fell into line behind them, treading silently, wafting the pungent smells of carbolic acid and rot with every swish of their coats. Fitz held his breath as they walked past him into Jemma’s lab. They couldn’t be here very long, or their stink would give their presence away in the morning.

Mr. Smith ran a lazy hand over Jemma’s prized motorized centrifuge, rubbing his fingers together as though they were covered in dust. “Quite a nice little laboratory for your wife to play in,” he observed. “State of the art, really.”

“She deserves it,” he said through gritted teeth. “And she doesn’t play in here. She does brilliant work.”

“I’m sure,” Smith said smoothly. “Shall we begin?”

While it would have given Fitz a great deal of pleasure to tell Smith to boil his head, the sooner they began the sooner they would be done, so he pasted on as sincere a smile as he could manage and went to the large cabinet where Jemma kept her notebooks. “If you’ll tell me what you’re looking for, I’ll pull out the relevant books for you. I’ve got a pretty good idea of her filing system.”

“That will not be necessary,” one of the prunes said. “We are capable of understanding the data. We can find what we’re looking for.”

“And put it back exactly right?” Fitz propped his hands on his hips and scoffed aloud. “Not Simmons’s system. That’s if you manage to decipher her scrawl. If we’re going to do this, you will handle nothing that I do not touch first.”

The second prune opened his mouth in protest, but Smith cut him off with nothing more than a gesture. “We shall do it your way this time, Mr. Fitz.”

“Fitz-Simmons,” he spat.

Smith allowed a tolerant smile. “Of course. Please remember, though, that we’re within our rights to seize your wife’s work and carry it away without either of your having anything to say about it. Tread lightly.”

Swallowing the reminder like bitter gall, Fitz refused to acknowledge the warning and pulled out one of the high stools to sit at the counter in front of the cabinet like a gatekeeper. He crossed his arms over his chest, glaring with more venom than rested in the vials behind him. “I’ll try not to crush anything.”

For the next hour? Two hours?—Fitz’s glances at his watch, consistent and frequent at first, slowed to a trickle as the hands seemed to stay steadier the more often he looked—the four men worked without speaking beyond quick clarifications of Jemma’s messy handwriting. In the silence, every sound seemed magnified: the rustle of papers, the nasal humming one of the prunes seemed incapable of stopping, the soft clicks and taps as Smith roamed the lab and touched everything in sight. Fitz gritted his teeth and said nothing. He doubted Smith could do any harm without his knowledge, and he’d rather not antagonize the man any further. His stubborn belligerence was already, he knew, dangerously near the edge of Smith’s patience. Though the man kept the same even, cold expression, his eyes grew more malevolent with every one of Jemma’s journals Fitz shoved across the desk.

“My, my. What a lot of rats.”

Fitz looked up from the Exterminator’s Mate, which he had pulled out of his case after his Rolex disappointed him for the hundredth time. “You don’t think all her work is theoretical, do you? She has to test it on something.”

Smith folded in half and poked at one of the gamboling rodents. Fitz hoped it bit him. “Does she lose many? I imagine with the poisons she works with—”

“Some.” He looked deliberately back at his work. “She’s very careful of course.” Actually, she was fond of the little wretches, though he wouldn’t volunteer that information for the life of him.

“Have you got a line item in the budget for rat replacement?”

He didn’t deign to respond to that.

Smith jerked back and shook his hand out. _Well done, ratties_ , Fitz thought with a secret grin. Seemingly unaffected, the other man reached into his pocket. After a handkerchief, Fitz assumed. “And yet you’re fiddling with a device to kill them. The irony does not escape me.”

“Everything in its place.” He redoubled his attention on the Mate to the exclusion of the other men, hoping he looked far too busy for small talk. He knew what of Jemma’s work they were ruthlessly pilfering; he didn’t want to know anything else. The less he knew, the less he would have to lie about later.

“Mr. Fitz!”

“For the thousandth time,” he growled through his teeth, “it’s Fitz-Simmons.”

“So sorry,” Smith said, not even pretending sincerity. “That thing you’ve got there. It’s the same thing you were working on earlier this week, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” he grunted.

“And which of these projects is it for?”

“One you haven’t seen. It’s not dangerous to humans. The stuff she uses is diluted to only work on vermin.”

“We’ll be the judges of what’s dangerous to humans, sir. You had better pull it out.”

With a sinking feeling he had done something wrong, Fitz turned to the cabinet and sorted through the papers, muttering under his breath. “B is for blue is for biological, P is for pink is for poisons. . .”

 _Snick_.

His head shot up and he looked quickly over his shoulder. “You haven’t got a lighter out, have you?” he said sharply, glaring at the prunes. “These are delicate and my wife’s already lost too much research to fire.”

Both men put their empty hands up innocently. “I think we know not to have empty flame around chemicals,” Mr. Smith said. “Very dangerous. In fact, I wonder you don’t worry about Mrs. Fitz.”

“ _Mrs. Fitz-Simmons_ follows every protocol perfectly. She’s never been in a lab accident.”

“There’s a first time for everything, Mr. Fitz.”

His stomach clenched up, and his fingers fumbled with the book he had just selected. What the hell did that mean? He had done exactly as Smith asked despite his own better judgment. There should be no reason for him to worry about Jemma. Any more than he always did, at least. Fighting the bile rising in his throat, he stammered, “Mr. Smith, I don’t know what you’re insinuating—”

“I don’t intend to insinuate anything, Mr. Fitz. Simmons. Only thinking what a pity it would be to have her record spotted.”

He looked lazily from the vials of chemicals to the piles of papers and the high wooden tables, carrying Fitz’s panicked gaze with him. The bright white cleanness of the lab flickered suddenly, turning instantly from cool to hot, from Jemma’s pristine lab at Macpherson to her first one at Verinder Hall—not the empty stone room it was now, but the inferno that had almost taken his life. Fitz pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes, willing himself to breathe, breathe—there was no smoke, he was not there, and Jemma was far from here and from danger.

“Mr. Fitz?”

Fitz met Smith’s unblinking, cunning eyes and spoke through the red-tinge clouding his vision. “My wife knows nothing of this. She’s not a threat to you. You don’t need to make threats against her.”

“Threats?” Smith raised his eyebrows. “No one has made any threats. I’m sure your wife is very safe. And I’m sure that your devices go a long way to keeping her so. You’re a very good team, apparently. In fact, it rather seems as though one’s work is worth a great deal less without the other’s.”

The Exterminator’s Mate seemed to mock him where it sat on the counter. “So it’s a threat against me,” he said dully.

Smith shrugged. “If you choose to see it that way. We would of course prefer to have your help without it. But we are not above alternative methods, if necessary.”

“My help,” Fitz said dully, crossing his arms in front of him. But it was an empty gesture, and he knew it, and Smith knew it. Every man has his weakness, and Fitz was of no doubt about his. Anything to keep Jemma safe, he thought, fleetingly glad she was out of harm’s way. At least for tonight.

 

* * *

 

Smashed between two men who smelled strongly of garlic and kept looking at her with a not entirely innocent curiosity, Jemma gritted her teeth and checked the posted map again. Two more stops to the change, then the less-crowded train to Golders Green. Thank goodness. Last time, she and Sylvia had been a pair, able to watch out for each other and steadfastly ignore any untoward glances or comments. But tonight, Sylvia and Mark planned to meet her at the Underground station, leaving her to make her own way through the London night. “I’ll be fine,” she had assured Sylvia, whose fingers were twisted tightly in the strap of her bag. “Don’t worry about me; you’ve enough else to be concerning yourself with.” As she tumbled out onto the platform, however, Jemma rather wished she knew _someone_ was worrying about her.

“Mrs. Fitz-Simmons!”

She turned, recognizing the voice with a rush of relief. “Aaron! It’s Jemma, remember?”

He hurried towards her, grinning, juggling several parcels and his attaché and his yarmulke, which had dropped off his head in the bustle. “Didn’t want to presume upon the acquaintance by shouting your Christian name across the entirety of the 8.30 rush. What are you doing here? Is Fitz around?”

“He had a meeting tonight.” She looked steadily at the platform, grateful that Aaron was too busy putting his hat back on to notice. “I’m on my own this evening. Well, not exactly on my own; I’m going out to Golders Green to meet some friends.”

She didn’t think she imagined the concern that flared quickly in his face, only to be replaced by a more determined smile. “How jolly. I’m going that direction myself. We can travel together.”

“And I can help you with your parcels?”

“No,” he said, laughing, “Fitz would murder me for putting you to work. If you’ll just grab my elbow, there, I think I can manage.”

She gripped the knob of his elbow and they set off through the crowds, taking the moving staircases down a level to the Northern line. At this hour, the office workers and shopgirls who frequented the lines to the suburbs had already streamed home and sat down to dinner, leaving Jemma and Aaron their pick of seats. Jemma took a breath as Aaron fell into the seat beside her, exaggeratedly wiping his forehead. “Well, that’s done at least. This is the easy part.”

The easy part had only just ended, Jemma thought, but she gave a tight-lipped smile and agreed. “Why are you going to Golders Green?”

“Oh, I live there.”

“You do?” she exclaimed, casting an appraising glance over his figure. Somehow, she had a difficult time reconciling his trim, elegant appearance with the shabby, dirty streets she remembered; without the yarmulke clearly marking his religion, he wouldn’t have been out of place in Mayfair. And with a job in the City, he could surely afford somewhere nicer, couldn’t he?

“Quite done?”

Her eyes flew to his amused ones and her hands flew to cover her burning cheeks. “Oh, I’m so sorry; that was horribly rude.”

“Don’t worry, Mrs. Fitz-Simmons. I know it’s entirely innocent.” He winked, alleviating some—but by no means most—of her guilt. Staring and jumping to conclusions? Had she been raised by animals? Unconcerned, he kicked his legs into the empty aisle. “My family all lives in Golders Green and has for generations. There’re quite a lot of us children of Abraham out there. We tend to stick together.”

“Why?”

“Safer that way.” Seeming not to notice her dismay, he shrugged unconcernedly. “I think I know everyone in a ten-street radius. I probably know your friends! Who are they?”

“Oh! Erm, they’re not—they don’t—we’re having dinner, that’s all. They don’t live there.” Aaron’s eyebrows beetled, and she scrambled to cut off the tricky questions she knew would come. “Er, isn’t it a bit late to be travelling home? But too early to have dined somewhere else.”

Aaron sighed, the corners of his eyes suddenly drooping, all the vivacity she had thought was an innate part of him drained away. “God in his heaven, it is. Been that way all week, really, apart from the night I came to your house, and even then I could have stayed another hour easily. It’s just the markets are rather nervy at present; they require someone babying them at nearly every moment.”

“Nervy?” she repeated, never having heard that term applied to an inanimate force.

He nodded wearily. “With Czechoslovakia in shambles and the PM dashing off to treat with Hitler, investors are anxious. It’s all we can do to keep the bottom crashing out from under us.”

She sucked in a quick breath, remembering the last crash, fully aware that it wasn’t over for many people. “But surely what happens in Czechoslovakia—I mean, everyone knows Chamberlain is leery of getting involved with Germany.”

“Depends on how you mean that,” Aaron said darkly, “where he is at present? But any sort of trouble in Europe has an effect on us, much as we might pretend it doesn’t. The men who still have money know that.”

“Is Fitz’s money—”

“Oh, don’t worry about that.” He put one hand over her wrist. “I’m watching it personally. At the first sign of trouble we put it into Swiss banks. Anyway, war might be the best thing possible for Fitz. He’s a weapons manufacturer, after all.”

She vaguely recalled Fitz telling her something about Swiss banks, now she stopped to think about it; he had a bit of a mental block regarding the money his uncle had left him and didn’t discuss it any more than he had to, but he did try to make sure she had the necessary information. Of course, she didn’t care much about it, either. If it weren’t for making certain Jean was comfortable, they could be happy with nothing. “Do you think it will come to that, Aaron? To war?”

“I do,” he said simply, the worried weight of centuries in his dark eyes. “Hitler is a madman. He steamrolled right over my people and now he’s moved on to the Czechs. What next? Belgium? Poland? France? He won’t be sated until he’s created whatever Paradise he has in his head.”

The lump of sick in Jemma’s stomach, present from the moment she left her house, started sloshing about worrisomely. Preoccupied with her work and with Sylvia and with Fitz, she hadn’t read the papers as carefully as was usually her wont; the situation had obviously worsened without her being aware of it. Last night’s newsreel had opened her eyes. Aaron’s words turned on the lights. And, although he quickly changed the subject to something cheerful and innocuous, she couldn’t escape the feeling of impending disaster.

At the stop, he swung to his feet and offered his elbow once more. “I’d invite you and your friends around for a drink after you dine, but my mother would have my head.”

“That’s all right,” she said, taking it and handing him the parcel she had taken on her lap for the journey, “I expect it will be quite late.”

And, she thought, she didn’t much fancy setting Mark loose in the same room as Aaron. Even Aaron’s jovial generosity would be no match for Mark’s sour rage. The impulse, only half-guessed at, solidified as Aaron caught a glimpse of Mark and Sylvia standing by the entrance. “Those are your friends, I expect?” he asked, his nose curling. “The girl looks nice but that man looks like a rat, if you don’t mind my saying. Are you sure you’ll be all right?”

“Perfectly,” Jemma said firmly, thanking her lucky stars Aaron didn’t know her well enough to recognize when she was lying. “My friend is a dear, and that’s her fiancé. He won’t let anything happen to us. But thank you for seeing me safe this far.”

Looking entirely unconvinced, Aaron released her reluctantly and backed away, skewering Mark with a glare until he disappeared out a side door. Mark returned the favor, not even stopping when Aaron was gone and Jemma had come up beside them. “Who was that?” he demanded as she clasped Sylvia’s hand in greeting.

“A friend of Fitz’s,” she said loftily. “And my financial advisor. We’ve just been discussing the division of my assets among the various institutions he’s put it in. When you have millions, of course, one spreads it around.”

She guessed that Mark wouldn’t like the mention of her frankly alarming wealth, and he didn’t; his face turned a curious shade of green and he almost growled as he spun on his heel and stalked away. Linking Sylvia’s arm with hers, Jemma nodded satisfactorily. “There, I rather think he won’t bother us for a bit.”

Sylvia offered a tremulous smile.

As Mark led the way through the streets, though, Jemma regretted her smart tongue. His path twisted and doubled back and turned sharply, careless of the women trailing behind him; if she didn’t know better, she would think that he didn’t care if they followed him or not. If that were the case, however, surely he wouldn’t have pushed so for them to come. Sylvia hurried along grimly, her jaw set. All Jemma’s attempts at conversation died instantly. There wasn’t the breath for it, really, but even if they had been calmly strolling through Hyde Park on a summer day they still wouldn’t have spoken. The very air, Jemma felt, was nervy.

Finally, they came up, gasping, to the door in the dark alley Jemma remembered. At least, she thought it was the same door; how many socialist conclaves could there be in one suburb? But the password had changed, and the door, when opened, disclosed a steeply-pitched set of stairs that plunged into blackness four steps down. Mark paused for a blink. “There’s the railing,” he said, pointing. “Don’t break your necks. We don’t want an inquiry.”

Clutching the railing with all the force her muscles could muster, Jemma reflected that at least death was not a desired outcome of the evening.

If it hadn’t already been clear tonight’s meeting had changed locations, the room they found at the bottom of the stairs proved it. In contrast with the warm, red, noisy Soviet Club, whatever _this_ should be called was cavernous, dark, full of echoes—a photo negative of Monday’s meeting in every respect. Even the people. As Jemma and Sylvia trailed after Mark, the quietly murmuring groups huddled around the few lamps fell silent, fixing the two women with suspicious glares. Jemma shivered, burrowing into the collar of her coat. The chill she felt around Sansfoy seemed to crawl across the ground and drip down the walls, freezing her to the very marrow. Mark directed them to a small round table with a dim lamp upon it, jerking out two chairs with a bad grace that kept the courtesy from feeling like one. “Just wait here. I’ll go get us some drinks.”

“Just tea for me,” Jemma called out, hoping to break the ice-cold tension that left her sliding unsteadily, searching for sure footing. Instead, the suspicious glares turned hostile, and the atmosphere froze harder. Jemma sunk back into her chair in silence. After a minute, Sylvia’s cold hand crept into hers.

Mark returned in short order, bearing three swallows of some liquid Jemma couldn’t identify in the dim light but burned going down, and then there was nothing. No more drinks. No more talking. They simply sat there, watching, listening, waiting—for what? Jemma didn’t know. All around them people carried on quiet conversations, heads bent over sheaves of papers or hands passing small parcels to be tucked into pockets or eyes flashing in the red glow of a cigarette while fists thumped into palms with soft _smack_ s, but not once did anyone do more than let their gaze drift over the table where Jemma and Sylvia and Mark sat. She never knew afterwards how much time passed. It could have been an hour. It could have been a year. She wished, with all her heart, Fitz was here.

“Mark.”

He jerked his head up and out of his brown study, but the scowl remained.

Sylvia took a breath, her hand gripping Jemma’s tighter than a vise. “Are we to meet someone tonight? I had thought—”

“Yes.”

“Yes?”

Mark reached into his pocket and pulled out a box of cigarettes. “He’ll come when he comes. But he especially wanted to meet you.”

“Only, darling—”

“What?”

But Sylvia’s courage petered out with the _sput sput_ of a car without petrol. “Oh, nothing.”

Did Mark even have any friends here, Jemma wondered. Like at the Soviet Club, no one spoke to them; unlike at the Soviet Club, the members here acknowledged Mark’s presence but decidedly snubbed any overtures he made towards them. If she wasn’t balancing on a knife-edge of anxiety and anger, she might have felt sorry for him. In his constant hope and disappointment, he resembled a scraggly, beaten puppy. Then she looked at Sylvia, whose eyes couldn’t contain all the love and worry and regret and hope that coursed through her, and she hardened her heart once more. Rats, she told herself firmly, did not deserve pity.

Then, all at once, the lights came up, and with them a burst of applause as the entire room turned towards the stairs. Jemma blinked rapidly, trying to adjust to the sudden brightness, and craned her neck to see over the crowd. “Who is it?” she asked, and the answer came from all directions, though not in response to her question: “Charles. Charles.”

Sylvia went very still beside her. Jemma pressed her lips together and tried to sink back to the wall, though she knew without a doubt that they could not escape an introduction. Their whole evening had built to this moment.

Scuffed, but once good, shoes descended the staircase slowly, revealing inch by anxious inch a pair of grey bags, ironed to a pointed sharpness but smudged and stained with grease and other things she didn’t care to identify. Then a waistcoat. Then a pair of broad shoulders. Then, with a murmur from the crowd that sounded like a breath of relief, the man’s face.

Jemma gasped despite herself. This man didn’t look anything like the cruel, twisted simian she had imagined through the long, cold hours, nor did he even slightly resemble his lieutenant Sansfoy, who hovered on the step behind him. He was young, dark, handsome; he had a nicely kept mustache and a carefully maintained haircut and his eyes looked more like the gentle, bright eyes of a stained-glass saint than anyone who belonged in this den of iniquity. He looked out over the crowd thoughtfully. “I’m glad you are here, friends. There is work to be done.”

And then he began to speak, calmly, reasonably, his voice the only warm thing in the room, rolling over the thirsty crowd like waves roll over the shore. Jemma found herself leaning in to hear better, drawn to the man like a moth to a flame—then she heard what he was saying, and jerked back as if burned.

“The men in power court destruction and get in bed with tyrants; they take the gifts they’ve been given and use them to trample other men. We know. We are the trampled. They think we are leaves to be crushed without care, but we are snakes: step on us, and we will rise and bite you. The politicians, the upper classes, the new money forcibly wrenching power at the expense of men just like them—all these will do anything to keep us down, so we must be willing to do anything to bring them down. We will show them their error by any means necessary.”

Jemma looked around the room, dismayed. Goodness knew that the upper classes often cared little for those below them, and no one could deny the needs of many millions throughout the country. She only knew a little bit, herself. But the people here weren’t those people. They had thick coats and slicked hair and good shoes; even if they only maintained appearances through credit, they at least had enough to borrow on. Where, then, did this sense of persecution come from? Because they did feel it. One had only to watch their faces to know. Mark, for example, watched Charles hungrily, his whole face rapt. Twisted and eerie though it was, the glow emanating from his eyes could be called nothing else but a love-light. He was in ecstasy. And now she knew what exactly Sylvia was up against: not just a philosophy, nor a person, but both together, offering Mark the opiate of understanding and revenge. Jemma clutched Sylvia’s arm tighter and closed her eyes, the better to breathe and to think. She could not give way to her own feelings, not when she had her friend to protect.

Eventually the manifesto sighed to a close and Charles came down into his throng of worshippers, stopping to speak to a few people here and there, giving others a brisk nod, leaving Sansfoy to whisper with a woman whose face seemed carved from marble. But Jemma had no doubt about his end destination. Despite the pack of eager dogs nipping at his heels, Charles refused to divert from the straight line that led directly to their table.

Mark pulled up a fourth chair eagerly, waiting until Charles dropped into it before sitting himself. “Mr. Charles,” he said, almost salivating, “thank you for meeting me. I’m so glad to know there’s anything I can do to help you.”

“Yes,” Charles said, “dear fellow, of course, you’ve already been more than helpful.”

His tone was kind, tolerant, but a little dismissive; it reminded Jemma of an older brother who had been told to be nice to his younger one. Actually, now that she thought about it, they looked very like brothers: not especially in their individual features, but enough that if a casual acquaintance saw them apart one could almost mistake one for the other. Together, there could be no mistake. Mark might have shared Charles’s dark hair, cultured voice, even his mustache, but he lacked the vibrancy and power that radiated off the other man. If Charles had been left out in the rain for a week, he would have looked like Mark.

Mark noticed no nuance. “It’s a pleasure, my pleasure. Anything I can do for the cause.”

“Your enthusiasm does you credit.” Leaning back in his chair, Charles lifted hooded eyes to the still-standing women. “But your manners do not. You haven’t introduced me to your lovely companions.”

“Of course!” Mark shot to his feet and took Sylvia’s hand. “My fiancé, Miss Forbes, and her dear friend, Mrs. Fitz-Simmons.”

Charles’s gaze, calculating towards Sylvia, snapped to Jemma with the sting of a rubber band, and she lifted her chin defiantly. She would not cower before this petty god. But, to her surprise, when she met his eyes a quick flare of fear met her there. He smothered it quickly with a blanket of nonchalance, but she hadn’t imagined it. Her mind raced. Why would Charles be afraid of her? Her work? Her influence? Her connections? But that was silly, because she only had a voice in society because of—

Fitz.

That had to be it, didn’t it? Sylvia warned her from the beginning that Fitz would not be welcome at the Soviet Club; how much more hated would he be in this company, more radical even than the people the government already feared? But why would Charles be _afraid_? Fitz didn’t pose a threat. He didn’t even know she was here.

But Charles didn’t know that. And the man had stood on those steps and spoken, quite calmly and rationally, about striking like a snake to take down people like Fitz by any means necessary.

She swayed a little on her feet, placing her fingertips on the tabletop for balance. What, she beseeched the universe at large, had she become embroiled in? And how could she extricate herself without someone being hurt?

“Mrs. Fitz-Simmons?”

She came back to consciousness with a thud, an apologetic smile slipping across her face. Thank goodness she had years of practice in excusing away her tendency to wander away. “I’m sorry, a bit lost in thought. What was the question?”

Charles gestured to the chair. “Won’t you sit down? I’m curious to hear what you thought of my little speech.”

“Oh, well—” She settled her dress carefully in a ploy for more time. First things first: she had to relieve any concern he might feel about her specifically. And without lying, which would surely set a match to the fire. “I can’t say I’ve considered it all _that way_ before, but it’s certainly very _interesting_. I’d hate to judge it so soon.”

Sylvia shot her a sharp glance, but Mark nodded and leaned forward eagerly. “I felt the same at first. All my upbringing told me Charles was wrong, but after some time I understood that he was only giving voice to things I had known deep inside all along. I know you must feel it too, Mrs. Fitz-Simmons. Sylvia’s told me about the indignities ladies suffer in your profession; don’t you agree that it would be better if there wasn’t any of that outdated power structure?”

“I’m actually rather fond of power structures,” she said, “I find they lend an order to society that allows creativity to flourish. It’s hard to worry about vaccines when dying of starvation is a more immediate danger.”

“But think how many useful contributions to society have been lost because their creators were not part of the establishment? Women, or poor men, or simply unpopular men—”

Jemma pursed her lips, ready to rebut, but Charles cut into Mark’s rampage first. “Certainly, Mrs. Fitz-Simmons, one must have order in a society. But it’s a question of who determines the order, isn’t it? People who will use it to oppress or people who will use it to build.”

On its face, that statement appeared harmless. Jemma knew the space between what he said and what he meant could swallow a cruise liner, but she saw no reason to alert him to that fact. “I suppose,” she said, trying to make it sound thoughtful rather than wary.

Charles held up a hand to forestall Mark’s eager attempts to press the issue. “Take some time to consider it, Mrs. Fitz-Simmons. I hope that you’ll come back and hear us again, allow us the opportunity to change your mind. We could use an ally like you.” Then he turned firmly to Mark, cutting Jemma and Sylvia out of the conversation as if a wall had appeared on the table between them. “Jones, I have to talk to you privately. I’ll have Sansfoy see them home.”

“Certainly,” Mark agreed, nodding fervently, and no amount of objection from Sylvia or Jemma could change his mind. Thus, they shortly found themselves being bundled up the stairs and into the night with no protector save the man the now-kindly-seeming Mr. Vaughn had warned them most strenuously against. Jemma kept her arm around Sylvia’s shoulders, offering strength she only scarcely had, and hoped that no one could hear the way her teeth chattered as they sped through the streets.

Sansfoy brought them to a cab stand and left them there unceremoniously, not even waiting to close the door behind them. So much the better, Jemma thought, she’d rather he not know where either of them lived. The sleepy cabbie accepted their addresses and ground into gear, leaving Golders Green quickly behind them. And good riddance. She fell back against the seat and turned only her head to look at Sylvia, sighing before she tried to muster up the last bit of guts she had to discuss what had happened.

Sylvia beat her to the punch. “They didn’t want me, I don’t think. They wanted you.”

The assessment diverged so sharply from what Jemma anticipated that it took a moment to respond. “No, don’t be silly, he didn’t know my name until Mark told him and then he was frightened, didn’t you see?”

“I saw,” Sylvia said, “but I also saw that they directed all their attention to you. I’m afraid—oh, Jemma, I swear I didn’t know. I never would have asked you if I thought they would try to absorb you.”

“Well, I won’t be absorbed,” she said flippantly, clasping her hands together in her lap to hide their shaking. “I don’t think they’re my sort of people, anyway. I’m one of those clumsy plodders trampling leaves in the forest, you know.”

Regarding her seriously, Sylvia clenched her jaw. “I wish you wouldn’t come again. I’m worried for you.”

“I’m not worried for myself, only you. And I would worry more if I left you to that den of snakes alone.” Jemma reached across the seat to squeeze Sylvia’s hand, somehow pulling a reassuring smile from the dregs of her soul. Abandon her friend? Never. What kind of friendship did Sylvia think they had, that she would so easily retreat when things became difficult?

“All right,” Sylvia said, “but what about Fitz?”

“What about Fitz?”

She deserved the annoyed glance Sylvia shot her. “Jemma, don’t be a fool. You heard as well as I did what those men were saying. You know they’re a threat to Fitz—if not him specifically, people like him. Why do you think they’re interested in you?”

Jemma bit her lip and looked out the window, not wanting to face Sylvia’s words. But the dark streets provided no distraction, nor did pretending her friend hadn’t spoken—she couldn’t escape the idea when it had already been born in her own thoughts. Sylvia was right. What benign interest could radical socialists have in a jumped-up capitalist’s wife? Probably the same benign interest they could have in anything: none.

“If you won’t do it for yourself,” Sylvia said, finally, “do it for him. Don’t put him in that danger.”

She whirled, her hair flying frazzled against her cheeks. “And leave you there?” she asked, voice rising. “No. There has to be a way to protect you both.”

“What, Jemma?” Sylvia held up both hands helplessly.

“I don’t know,” she said firmly. “But we’ll just have to think of it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's true that there was/is a substantial Jewish population in Golders Green! Jemma's impression of the suburb as shabby, however, is entirely because she's always lived in the Nice Parts of Town and isn't used to it. Fitz, growing up in the very poor parts of Glasgow, would think nothing of it. 
> 
> Every week I feel as though I should thank you for marathoning your way through these chapters, and this week—since this one is EXTRA long—I give into the impulse. Thank you, my friends; it means a great deal to me.


	14. Interview With a Weeping Widow

“Jemma. Simmons, sweetheart. I’m here.”

She stopped running and turned over her shoulder to look back down the cluttered alley, her forehead wrinkling in confusion even as she gasped for breath. How could he be here? He should be at home, far away from this place where the ground squirmed and writhed, where snakes slithered over and around each other in one matted, twisted carpet. But when she turned back, there he stood, holding out a rescuing hand heedless of the reptiles twining around his ankles. _Get away_! she tried to scream, only to watch in horror as the words turned to dust in her throat and an enormous snake with glassy human eyes reared up above his shoulder to strike.

“Jemma! Jemma, wake up!”

With a last gasp, she came awake all at once, heart pounding and chest heaving as she fought to locate herself in the waking world. The grey light of morning. The deep, soft bed. Her favorite set of pajamas. And there, propped over her on one elbow with a very worried look on his face, was Fitz. “There, there,” he crooned, smoothing her hair away from her face, “there’s my brilliant girl. I’m here. It was only a nightmare.”

His eyes tethered her to earth, their blueness steady and calm and warm and strong; his striped-silk chest brushed against hers with each exhale. Murmuring soothing nonsense, he waited until her breathing matched his and brushed his thumb over her cheekbone tenderly. “That was a bad one.”

The images returned, unbidden: Sylvia, swollen and staring in the streets; blood dashed against the doorways of the never-ending alley. . . “Yes. A new one.”

“A new one?” His expression flickered between confusion and concern. “And here I thought we’d had every possible variation of the suffocation nightmare.”

“It wasn’t suffocating.”

He nodded, replacing his thumb with the tips of his fingers and running them gently over the still-present creases in her forehead. “Do you want to talk about it?”

She closed her eyes and shuddered. Fitz traced down the bridge of her nose and brushed gently over her eyelashes, waiting patiently. “There were snakes,” she said finally.

Did his finger stutter in its winding trail through her freckles? “But you aren’t afraid of snakes.”

She wasn’t. Not when they had scales and tongues that forked rather than carefully shabby suits and tongues that enticed. “They were everywhere. I couldn’t save you.” Opening her eyes, she met his gaze earnestly. “I did try, Fitz.”

“I know you did.” He bent to press a kiss to her cheek, then pulled back, serious. “I’m all right, see? Safe and sound. And so are you.”

Curling into his hand, she let her eyes drift closed again. Like this, with his smell surrounding her and his weight grounding her, she could almost make herself believe him. Almost. As long as they stayed here, together, ignoring the world with all its demands and dangers, nothing could harm them; they were inviolate, a perfect circle, a medieval keep surrounded by a rock-solid wall. But eventually they would have to get up and go out. And when they did, the worries that had kept her tossing and turning long into the early hours of the morning would demand attention with all the insistence of a battering ram. Safe and sound? Only if she managed to keep Charles and his army from storming the castle.

“Why did you dream about snakes, d’you think?”

Her train of thought came to a grinding halt. “What?” she asked, not opening her eyes.

“It’s an odd thing to dream about if you aren’t scared of it. Nothing to do with your usual nightmares, either—except pythons, they suffocate their victims, don’t they? Was it pythons?”

She smiled in spite of herself. “No, just snakes. Why would I dream about pythons?”

“If you’ll recall, I just asked you why you would dream about snakes. And I thought you had a good memory.”

“Ugh, Fitz.”

“It’s astounding,” he said, his voice dropping from the space above her to the space beside, “that I can tell that you’re rolling your eyes even with them closed.”

“And I meant to be so subtle.”

She joined his chuckle as she rolled to face him, fisting one hand under her pillow to prop up her head and laying the other between them, palm up. Matching his fingers with hers, he looked up at her through his eyelashes; though the laugh lingered around the corner of his mouth, it didn’t lighten the weight behind his gaze. Her own smile smoothed away as she watched him. The darling, dear, dear man—he was so determined to fix it. While she had known from the beginning that he couldn’t help taking things apart to make them better, she hadn’t anticipated that drive would extend beyond machinery. She couldn’t have a problem that belonged to her alone; if he knew about it, he threw himself into solving it with inexhaustible energy—not because he didn’t trust her to solve it herself, but because he wanted to help her however he could. He always did that.

“So?” he said again, twining their hands. “Why snakes?”

He had presented her with the perfect opportunity and Jemma knew it. But she also knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that if she told Fitz why snakes slithered through her dreams, he would not be content to leave it alone. He would insist on coming along, or calling the police, or some other elaborate plan that would be the equivalent of throwing down the drawbridge. And so. Her conclusion presented itself as clearly as hydrogen peroxide: until she knew how she wanted to approach the problem, she couldn’t tell Fitz anything. _Anything_ , or he would pull it all from her before she realized—or she would share, glad not to have to bear it herself—and she would be the one to invite the invaders in. Could she? Could she keep something so heavy, so horrible from Fitz, even if only temporarily?

It didn’t matter. She had to try.

She pulled their hands to her face and kissed his knuckles, hoping the action would provide an excuse for her dropped eyelids. “Perhaps it was something I ate. You don’t have to worry about me, Fitz.”

“I always worry about you. Can’t seem to help it, even though I know you don’t need me to take care of you.” He shrugged, a bit self-deprecatingly. “Wondered if it might be Mrs. Osbourne, if the investigation was catching up with you finally. Not sure what _snakes_ have to do with anything, but Freud—”

She dropped his hand to put her palm over his mouth. “Ooh, Fitz, no, best not think about what Freud would think of my dream. That way lies madness.” Then, struck with a thought, she sat up sharply. “Mrs. Osbourne! What time is it?”

Following her less abruptly, he rubbed up his neck into his hair. “That was another reason I woke you. It’s nearly nine, and we said we’d meet her at ten.”

“Fitz!” Throwing back the covers, she sprang out of bed, nearly tripping over her pajama legs in her haste. “You’ve left scarcely enough time—you’re not even dressed—we’ll be late!”

“So, sue me,” he said, making no move to clamber out. Instead, he fell onto his stomach and stretched one hand to snag her pocket as she smoothed down the blankets and replaced her pillow. “Until the nightmare started, you looked very peaceful sleeping. It’s not a sight I get to enjoy often.”

“Allowing your personal pleasures to supersede your duties, Mr. Fitz-Simmons?”

“I cannot tell a lie.” Getting onto his knees in one smooth motion, he put a hand on her cheek and one on her waist to tug her to him, capturing her squeak with his (maddening, marvelous) mouth. She really oughtn’t allow such liberties, not when they had an appointment to keep, but as he tightened his grip and began pressing open-mouthed kisses up her jaw line her own sense of duty seemed to develop a slight pit. They were going to be late already, anyway.

“Jemma?”

“Mmm,” she said, her head lolling to rest against his shoulder.

His question lapped warm and wet against the shell of her ear. “Will you accept first use of the bath as penance?”

The utter _tease_. But two could play that game. Removing her hands from his hair, she extricated herself neatly and settled her pajama top. “As you’re the one to make us late, I will accept first use of the bath as my right. Penance will be negotiated at a later time.”

His eyes lit up wickedly. “Promise?”

“Promise.” She pursed her lips, considering. “My glassware could use a good scrub. That might be penance enough.” And she spun away, smirking at the disappointed protest sounding behind her.

 

* * *

 

 

Somehow—primarily, Jemma suspected, the fact that Fitz drove—they managed to be on the doorstep at exactly eight minutes past the hour. Which, all things considered, she found far from unreasonable. She hadn’t had time to eat breakfast, unfortunately, but as her stomach was rather sloshy, no doubt from the speeds with which Fitz had torn through the streets, that was perhaps for the best. She put one gloved hand over her stomach, willing it to calm, and breathed out slowly through her nose.

Fitz put his hand over hers where it rested on his arm and pressed gently, ducking his head to meet her eyes. “A bit different than Verinder Hall, isn’t it?”

Of course. Being a townhouse as opposed to a country one; being a stranger’s home, rather than the home she had known much of her adolescence. Her eyebrows twisted as she canted her head curiously.

“You had more good memories than bad ones there, yeah? So the murders didn’t overwhelm you. Never been here before, though, except when somebody got their head bashed in. It’s a bit different.”

Understanding seeped through her, washing away the tension in her spine and the jut of her jaw. He had hit the nail bang on. Her queasiness was uneasiness, not carsickness; the shining white façade of the Osbourne home reminded her of the Bible’s whited sepulchers, a pure outside hiding a horror within. Her next breath escaped in a huff of a laugh, and she rested her head briefly against his shoulder. “How did you guess? I didn’t even know.”

“I spent that whole weekend wanting to swoon,” he admitted, “going into Peacock that morning, my hands shook so badly I dropped my knife into the carpet. The wood under it’s probably marked now.”

“How did you do it?”

He brought her hat back into alignment, nodding when he got it to a satisfactory angle. “I knew you would be there soon. And I’m here now for you. Ready?”

She squeezed his arm. “As long as you’re here.”

To her surprise, the butler bypassed the receiving rooms on the main floor to lead them up the grand staircase, following the path she and Fitz had taken so lightheartedly all those months ago. It seemed longer. Goodness knew she hadn’t been paying very close attention then, but the corridor’s heavy, somber atmosphere felt new, as though the events that had taken place in its rooms were rocks in its pockets, dragging it down to earth. The further they went down the hall, the slower she walked. It was like wading, really. Wading through sorrow. Fitz’s hand hovered at the small of her back, encouraging her forwards and catching her when she faltered. If they passed the room, she wondered, would she be able to feel the darkness emanating from it?  

But the butler stopped before they reached the study, gesturing them into a light, bright room that faced the street in front of the house. “Mrs. Osbourne’s study,” he explained. “She will be with you shortly.”

He left on cat-like feet, shutting the door silently behind. Jemma looked at Fitz and he looked at her, raising both shoulders to his ears. “Not what I expected.”

“Nor I, but I won’t complain.” She glanced around appraisingly, taking in the well-chosen furniture, the fresh flowers covering every surface, the dark, solid silver candlesticks on the mantelpiece. “It’s a pleasant room. As different to the—the other as a mouse and an elephant.”

“Though not so antagonistic, I expect.” Humming a little under his breath, he wandered over to the windows and peered through the curtains. “Hullo, there’s a park over there! I thought it was just trees.”

Jemma, more interested in the cluster of family photographs on the side-table by the sofa, spoke distractedly. “Of course, Fitz; this is one of the grand old neighborhoods. It must have been in Mr. Osbourne’s family.”

“Not new money like Uncle George, you mean.”

She paused her perusal of the Osbournes’ wedding photo to consider. “Oh, no, still new money, wouldn’t it be? Since he invested so heavily. I just meant he was an old family. Look at those candlesticks, Fitz; you don’t walk into a shop and buy something like that.”

“Which?” he asked, not looking.

“On the mantelpiece, darling fool. The only ones in the room.” Wrinkling her nose, she perched at the edge of the sofa and picked up a small brown group shot, intrigued by the oddly-shaped vegetation. Perhaps this was…yes. A much younger Osbourne family stared back at her, dressed in the all-white clothing meant to fend off the intense Indian heat. And there, off to the side, a man and a woman stood, each with one hand on the shoulder of a small girl whose deep dimple almost split her smiling face in half. A starker contrast with the woman she had left miserable last night could not exist. Did everyone look like this as children, Jemma wondered, and how much had to happen to one to beat the happiness out so completely? “Come look at this, Fitz.”

He changed course obediently, resting his hands on the back of the sofa to peer over her shoulder. “It’s Miss Forbes. In India, isn’t it?” Dropping his chin to the top of her head, he seemed content to answer his own question. “Poor girl,” he said, finally.

His insight, as always, surprised her even when she half-expected it; whether he instinctively reflected her emotions or simply felt them himself, she had never known someone who understood so well. She reached blindly backwards with one hand and searched for his. “At least she had this, though, whatever came after.”

Before he could respond, the door creaked slowly open. Jemma set the photograph back down hastily and got to her feet, starting forward unconsciously to extend her hand to the tall, frail woman framed by the doorway. Augusta Osbourne waved it away, even as she paused to rest her own hand on the wooden slats of the frame. Despite the white-knuckled grip, the flash of her eyes under thick, dark brows bespoke the determination that truly kept the woman on her feet. Fitz came around the sofa and wavered, clearly torn between his innate desire to help and his practiced belief that women didn’t require assistance simply on basis of their sex. They stood there, three points of an isosceles triangle stretched thin by the gulf between happiness and tragedy.

Then Mrs. Osbourne sighed and gestured Fitz forwards, transferring her slight weight from the jamb to his arm for the short journey to an embroidered chair. Jemma sat when she did, leaning forward to offer her hand and hoping that her face looked sympathetic and not simply pitying. “You’re looking well, Mrs. Osbourne. I’m glad to see you’ve recovered so nicely.”

Mrs. Osbourne took Jemma’s fingers at their very tips and held them for a second, dropping her hands back to her lap when she as soon as was polite. “You’re very kind. I don’t believe we’ve ever been formally introduced, but perhaps we may skip over the pleasantries, considering all that has passed between us?”

“We can do whatever you like,” Fitz said as he came to sit beside Jemma. “We’re here at your request.”

Jemma nodded agreement. “We don’t wish to make this difficult for you in any way.”

As thought it could be anything but difficult, she reflected when Mrs. Osbourne pressed her lips together and glanced out the window. The mere memory made her, Jemma, sick, and she had Fitz hale and hearty beside her; how much more would Mrs. Osbourne struggle without the reassuring presence of her husband to make it better? Despite their need for certain answers, she and Fitz agreed: no pressing Mrs. Osbourne. The poor woman already carried enough pain. Anyway, she could hardly be suspected of hitting herself in the head with a poker—the angle, Fitz explained at some length, was all wrong for that.

After a minute, Mrs. Osbourne returned her attention to them, eyes damp but resolute. “I wished to see you to clear up something about this investigation of yours. Iris says that she told you I was opposed to it?”

They nodded in unison.

“I remain so. But I understand that Daphne requires some sort of action if she is to accept it. She and her father were very fond of each other, and she takes it hard.”

“Understandably,” Jemma said, and Fitz murmured agreement.

“Well. There it is.” She nodded once, firmly. “I wanted to tell you that you may give it up whenever convenient. The police have scarcely any clues and you, I expect, have even less. Eventually Daphne will understand that some things are unsolvable mysteries.”

She felt Fitz’s pointed question hit the back of her head, and she darted her own with a sideways glance and a slide of her little finger against his. “We didn’t intend to give it up until we reached a conclusion. The scientific mind, you know; it’s a bit of a curse.” Smiling to take the sting out, she added, “Anyway, I’m afraid our agreement is really with Daphne and Iris. We would have to discuss ceasing with them before taking any action.”

Fitz scooted slightly forward on the sofa to better see Mrs. Osbourne, putting his elbows on his knees so that his hands hung in front of them. “Why do you think your husband’s death is an unsolvable mystery?”

She tapped her knee against his and frowned when he met her eye, but Mrs. Osbourne only sucked in a breath before answering steadily. “I have every confidence that it was an unlucky attack. My husband had no one with a reason to kill him. No one can expect to find an unknown villain after so long, not without substantial evidence—which doesn’t exist.”

The last question had been Fitz’s, so she took her turn. “What about the things that were stolen? The stocks? The necklace? Surely they can look for those.” Aaron had been fairly confident that he could find the stocks, at least; the police with all their resources should be even more able to do so, given enough time.

Mrs. Osbourne shook her head. “What do they call those in detective stories? Dead ends? Only the necklace was stolen, and there’s little chance the thieves haven’t simply tossed it in the Thames.”

Their voices rose in incredulous unison:

“A necklace worth ten thousand pounds?”

“What sort of idiots would they be?”

“Of course it would be dangerous to try to sell as is—”

“Even the loose gems would be worth—”

“Criminals have all sort of connections; they might be able—”

“Stop,” Mrs. Osbourne said, and they subsided instantly, surprised by her authority. For all she looked so frail, all blue veins and crepe skin that aged her far beyond her years, she clearly had reservoirs of strength to draw from. The power present in the single word surprised Jemma. Unknowingly, she had been imagining Mrs. Osbourne as a relic from the Victorians, one of the spineless shrinking violets who gazed upon their husbands with starry adoration whether being kissed or kicked. Sylvia had said she never disagreed with Mr. Osbourne, didn’t she? But perhaps she didn’t agree from weakness. And if so, perhaps the kid gloves could be removed.

Fitz shifted uneasily in his seat, stammering a little over his apology. “Sorry, we—bad habit. Er, it seems unreasonable for criminals to—forgive me—kill someone over a necklace they then try to get rid of, particularly one so valuable.”

“It’s reasonable if—” Mrs. Osbourne stopped with a jerk, screwing up her eyes and shaking her head. “Oh, Stafford would be so cross with me for telling you this. It was a tremendous secret. But I suppose it’s no use now.”

Jemma kept herself very still, trying not to frighten off the butterfly of new information; beside her, Fitz shoved backwards in an attempted display of nonchalance. The brisk tattoo of his thumb against the cushion betrayed his eagerness. “Of course,” he said, “you don’t have to tell us anything you’d rather not.”

Mrs. Osbourne didn’t open her eyes. “If I don’t, you won’t leave it be, will you?” Finding ample answer in their silence, she stiffened her shoulders and spine—against what, Jemma wondered—before blinking painfully. “They were paste. The necklace hasn’t been real for nearly ten years.”

_That’s a bit of a difficulty_ , Fitz’s startled glance said, and she silently agreed. It certainly explained why the police’s inquiries had been fruitless. Well-made paste could be expensive, but not anywhere near the value of the real jewels, and of course the individual stones were worthless. Whoever had taken Mrs. Osbourne’s emeralds had been left, therefore, with an unmistakable smoking gun and no way to dispose of it profitably. Perhaps Mrs. Osbourne’s idea of the Thames wasn’t so laughable as it appeared. And if the necklace couldn’t help them—

“What about the stocks?” Fitz asked, the question tumbling from his mouth almost the same instant it appeared in her mind. “The papers said, and Daphne and Iris did as well, that stock certificates were taken from the safe?”

The tight, twisted smile wrung out another pitiful drop. “Of course they did. They didn’t know otherwise. But believe me, Mr. Fitz-Simmons, they weren’t in the safe to be stolen.”

“Where are they, then?”

“They’re—I—”

Horrified, Jemma watched Mrs. Osbourne’s eyes fill with tears. How had that happened? She had been so brave about her husband’s death; this question, a simple inquiry about something that Mrs. Osbourne herself maintained had nothing to do with the murder, shouldn’t have resulted in confused weeping. She appealed to Fitz desperately, entirely at a loss. _What do we do?_

_Hold on._ Digging around in his pocket, he pulled out a decently clean handkerchief and passed it to Mrs. Osbourne with a gentle “shh, shh. Don’t worry. Never mind. We don’t need to know. It doesn’t have anything to do with the murder if they weren’t there, does it?”

Storm-swept eyes peered over the silk of his handkerchief gratefully. “No,” she said between sobs, “it has nothing to do with it. So you—you can see—”

“That the police have nothing to go on,” Fitz finished for her. Jemma glanced at him sharply. _Do you think—?_ But he shook his head, small enough so Mrs. Osbourne wouldn’t notice, and continued. “I do understand why you think that, Mrs. Osbourne. But truly, neither you nor we know all the things the police do. They’re almost miraculous.”

She shuddered and wiped her eyes before balling the handkerchief in her lap. “I lost my faith long ago, Mr. Fitz-Simmons, but I haven’t forgotten that miracles can’t be relied upon. And truly, what does it matter? My husband is dead whether I know who killed him or not. Nothing can change that.” After one last swipe, she held out the handkerchief without looking at either of them. “Please, don’t dig him up again.”

Jemma reached for the offered cloth and turned to hand it to Fitz, holding his thumb and his gaze as she passed it over. _We can’t ask more._

_No_ , he agreed.

_But it isn’t enough._

_What do you suggest?_

Goodness, how was she to know? Interrogating suspects had never been _her_ strong suit. But if they wanted more information, they would have to take a different tack so as not to spook Mrs. Osbourne, and that meant putting her at her ease again. Turning back, she offered Mrs. Osbourne her kindest smile, reaching for the photograph she had been examining before the woman entered. “Mrs. Osbourne, I wonder, this is your family in India, isn’t it? And who are these people?”

She glanced at it, then looked again, taking it from Jemma’s hand. “But you know them. At least, you recognize Sylvia, of course. Such a charming child. Pity what happened.”

“Yes,” Jemma said fervently. “Poor dear, it’s sickening.”

One finger gently caressed the smiling face of Sylvia’s mother. “Rachel and I were girls together, did you know? It was such a marvelous surprise when she and Arthur came to Madras—a little bit of home, even there. I hated India, but they almost made it tolerable. And then—the Crash—poor Arthur couldn’t bear it, and she couldn’t bear the shame of his death. It was selfish of them, of course. There was still Sylvia.” She sighed.

“But your family took her under your wing, didn’t you?” Jemma reminded gently, feeling it would perhaps be best to avoid the subject of sudden and tragic deaths. “She said you were very kind to her.”

“We were happy to do it.” Mrs. Osbourne replaced the photograph on the table with a last lingering touch and a sad smile. Then, quick as a flash, her expression grew firm and determined as she leaned towards Jemma, pitching her voice at a conspiratorial level. “Listen, Mrs. Fitz-Simmons. I don’t know if she told you, but she came into some money in my husband’s will. Can’t you convince her to take it? I know that Stafford would want her to have it. He was so fond of her, even though they disagreed.”

He might have made up sooner then, Jemma thought, but she only offered a tight-lipped acknowledgement. “I don’t know that I can convince her. She’s awfully proud.”

Fitz raised his head so that his fingers, previously folded against his nose in a prayer-like attitude, trailed over his lips and chin. “And it’s a bit awkward, isn’t it? You know Sylvia—won’t stretch out her hand for something if someone else can’t have it.” _Play along_ , he begged, and she gave a small nod though she hadn’t the foggiest idea what he meant to do.

Thankfully, Mrs. Osbourne asked the question Jemma couldn’t. “What do you mean?”

Shoving to his feet, Fitz shrugged as he put his hands in his pockets. “Only taking the money free and clear when your children have to deal with trusts—of course they received a good deal more, but you can imagine why Sylvia might be hesitant.”

Ah, so _that’s_ what he was getting at! She struggled to keep from looking excessively impressed and managed only by quickly redirecting. “That’s very true. It might look as though Mr. Osbourne trusted her more than his own children, and she would hate that.”

She crossed her fingers in a fold of her skirt, just to be safe—it wasn’t a lie, per se, but its veracity wouldn’t pass a standard proof test. No doubt guilt was written all over her face. But Mrs. Osbourne, staring blindly as something between Fitz and Jemma, only laughed shortly. “Well, it wouldn’t be an incorrect assumption.”

“Oh, we didn’t mean—”

“It’s all right, Mrs. Fitz-Simmons. Budgie’s been eloquent on the subject, I imagine. In truth, the trusts were solely to guard against his excesses, but Stafford was determined it be fair between the children. We could hardly put restrictions on Iris’s money and not Larry or Daffy. Especially since she’s really the steadiest of them all.”

“Did you explain that to them?” Fitz asked.

“No,” Mrs. Osbourne said, as they had known she would.

Fitz scuffed at the carpet with one shoe, carefully casual: “So that wasn’t what the infamous row was about?”

For the first time since she had come in, Mrs. Osbourne’s eyes sparked—with what, Jemma couldn’t say until she spoke, the words flying like bullets through her teeth. “It’s nobody’s business what my husband and my son quarreled about. The gossip ghouls have been fluttering around it for a year, but it had nothing to do with this. It couldn’t, because _none_ of it has anything to do with my husband’s death, because it was a horrible accident.” She snapped to standing more quickly than Jemma would have thought possible. It certainly couldn’t have been healthy; Mrs. Osbourne’s face went suddenly blank, and she swayed dangerously on her feet. Both of them sprung to her assistance, but she waved them off with a fierce hand and fought to regain her balance alone. “I find myself unwell,” she said when finally steady. “You’ll forgive me if I ask you to leave.”

“Can we do anything for you?” Jemma asked, seeing Fitz already heading for the bell. “Water, or—”

“Just stop trying to find impossible answers and leave us to mourn in peace.” Sinking slowly back into the chair, Mrs. Osbourne buried her face in one hand and pointed to the door with the other. “And go now, please.”

Before Jemma could protest that they couldn’t leave her alone in her condition, the door opened and a plain woman with broad hands and the crisp uniform of a nurse bustled in. “The patient needs her rest,” she said firmly without so much as a glance at Fitz or Jemma, pulling a stoppered vial from a capacious pocket. “I’ll thank you to leave us.”

Third time’s the charm, Jemma thought ruefully, and accepted Fitz’s invitation to leave the room first. The door shut firmly behind them.

Both of Fitz’s eyebrows disappeared into his hairline. “I’m receiving the impression we aren’t wanted, are you, Simmons?”

“I am rather, Fitz. But how kind to let us know when we’ve overstayed our welcome.”

“Well”—he gestured grandly down the corridor—“after you, darling. At least we’ve got plenty of time to discuss our findings. And I’ve had an idea. I’ll tell you when we’re outside.”

She nodded and began the way back, too preoccupied this time to be morbid. That interview had been…well, not exactly illuminating. If she was entirely honest, they were further back than they had been when they begun. So much for the leads they had depended on—fake jewels! Stock certificates that hadn’t actually been stolen!—and Mrs. Osbourne hadn’t provided them any new ones to follow. On the contrary, she seemed determined to convince them, not merely to stop investigating, but also that there could be no other explanation than the one she set forward. Why? Jemma wondered as she followed Fitz down the stairs and into the cloakroom. Was it easier to chalk up the tragedy to a random twist of fate? Did she simply not wish to consider another alternative because she knew what the alternative must be? If one already lost one’s husband, Jemma supposed the idea of losing one of one’s children as well would be too much to bear. But how could one bear such a secret? Wouldn’t it eat away at your relationship until it was nothing more than moth-eaten tatters?

“Simmons?”

She looked at Fitz, holding out her coat for her to shrug into with a somewhat perplexed expression, and shoved aside the niggling, accusatory voice. It wasn’t the same at all. Plunging in, she pulled her hair over her collar and began briskly, “I was just wondering why Mrs. Osbourne wouldn’t—”

A quick patter of feet in the hall announced the rapid approach of a third party, and she stopped her sentence only just in time before Daphne Osbourne flew into the coatroom in a blur, her hair and several heavily embroidered long shawls flying behind her. “Oh good,” she panted, “you haven’t left yet. I wanted to speak to you.”

Caught with his arms twisted awkwardly in his burberry, Fitz merely stared at her blankly. Clearly conversation was Jemma’s responsibility. As she moved to help Fitz with his coat, she offered Daphne a kind but closed smile. “How can we help you? I’m afraid we don’t have anything to tell you about the investigation. It’s still in early stages, really, so I wouldn’t expect—”

“Oh, no, not about that.” Daphne waved the idea away like a fly. “I wanted to invite you to my show. I’m having a little exhibition at my dear friend Ann’s house tonight and I’d love you both to come—you’re awfully notorious, you know, and it would just show Boris and his tame Bolshie. Oh, do say you will?”

“Your show?” Fitz said, even more at a loss than before.

Jemma clutched desparately at the shards of a memory. “A show of your vases? Er, ceramics?”

“Ceramics?” Daphne frowned, cleared, and laughed. “Oh, I haven’t done that in ages. No, it’s paintings. I’m doing these thick oils, very primitive, something like Dada—all about Dad, you know, the really visceral stuff of death. It’s tremendously exciting. Of course Iris thinks they’re rubbish, but she doesn’t know anything about art. Larry will love them.”

They spoke at the same time:

“He will?”

“Larry’s going to be there?”

Daphne laughed again, pulling one of her wraps over her shoulder. “Of course! I did it particularly so he could come. He loves my work.”

They didn’t even have to catch each other’s eye to know what to say:

“Of course we’ll come.”

“We’d be happy to.”

“Marvelous!” Bouncing a little on her toes, she reached out to squeeze Jemma’s hands. “Ann Murgatroyd, you know her, at eight, there will be cocktails and hors d’oeuvres but dine before you come anyway, I can’t promise they’ll be very nice to eat. Thank you!” And she dashed back out again without waiting for a response, letting the door slam behind her.

Fitz blinked slowly, shaking his head. “Do you know Ann Murgatroyd?” he asked, slightly dazed.

“No.”

“Well, Andrews will be able to find her.” Pinching the bridge of his nose, he stared at the door as though it could provide the answers he sought. “Did that seem anything like the same Daphne Osbourne who cried in my office?”

“No,” she said again.

He nodded. “I meant to ask you if rapid emotional changes were normal after a head injury, but I think it must just run in the family. I wonder how Iris escaped?”

“Mental strength, I expect.” She took his hat from his hand and placed it on his head, squaring it off at just the right angle. “It does make one wonder about Stafford Osbourne. Actually, I wonder a great many things about Stafford Osbourne.”

“So do I,” he said, opening the door for her with an elaborate bow. “I believe, my dear Watson—”

“Fitz!”

“Let me be Holmes this once, for goodness’ sake—I believe it’s time we retired to our rooms to examine the clues.”

Rolling her eyes, she took his arm and huddled into him as the wind whipped up the hem of her coat. “Very well, then, Mr. Holmes, lead on. I eagerly anticipate the solution your brilliant mind has uncovered.”

“Oh, I’m entirely at sea. But we have to discuss things before we can know where to go next. Only there’s one more thing I wanted to see first if you’re all right in the wind.”

“Perfectly fine,” she said.

“Good.” He stopped and spun her away from him, canting his head to the side appraisingly. “Do you think you could scale a fence in those shoes?”


	15. Where Even Are We?

Despite Fitz’s strong argument that doing so would save a great deal of time, Jemma flatly refused to scale fences in those shoes or any others. “No,” she said, corners of her mouth firmly tucked back, “wearing a kilt for an afternoon to be married does not give you intimate knowledge of how to wear skirts. It would be impossible.”

“Fine,” he grumbled, “so we’ll just wander around trusting luck and my stellar sense of direction. If we miss lunch because of this—”

“It will be due to your sense of direction, won’t it?”

He opened his mouth to retort, saw her smugly raised eyebrows, and snapped it shut again. Curse her perpetual rightness. Instead, he tucked her hand in the crook of his elbow and set off at a brisk pace down the street and around the corner. If she wouldn’t climb a fence, they’d have to find the legitimate way in.

Fortunately, a year of being wildly wealthy and eleven years of uneasy privilege before that hadn’t entirely removed his early training. He located the tradesman’s entrance without too much difficulty and picked the lock with even less, hopping through the wooden door and throwing back his hand to help Jemma over its mid-calf sill. To his surprise, she didn’t take it. “Fitz?” she said, voice quavering. “What are you doing?”

He pivoted on his heel, hand still outstretched. A pale, wide-eyed face stared over his shoulder into the shadowy alley. “Jemma? Are you all right? I’ll put the lock back when we’re done—I only wanted to look at the ivy.”

“The ivy.” Color flooded back into her face. “Of course. To see if it could bear a person’s weight.”

“What did you think?”

“Oh, I—I don’t know. Don’t mind me.” He couldn’t help but mind her, but she offered him a quick glimmer and placed her hand confidingly in his, and the band of worry around his chest slackened a bit. “I suppose you were counting windows as we went down the corridor.”

“Don’t have to,” he said, “there’s a fireplace, remember? We’ll just look for the chimney at the end of the hall.”

Ivy crept and crawled across the back of the house in a glossy green curtain, each leaf dancing and clapping against its neighbors as the breeze brushed through it. They kicked up quite a racket, for which Fitz was grateful; any noise they made would likely go unnoticed by those in the house. Leading them to the far end of the building, he stopped by the chimney and looked up. Beside him, Jemma did the same. “There’s certainly enough of it,” she observed.

“But it’s a vine, really, isn’t it? Will it be strong enough?”

From the way she bit her lip he guessed she meant to launch into a detailed analysis in response to his question. He did love her, he thought fondly, and dropped her hand. Tugging his gloves on more securely, he went up to the wall and plunged both hands into it, digging around for the rooted vines and praying no insects crawled up his sleeves.

“Fitz. What are you doing.” It didn’t count as a question when she sounded a mere breath away from laughing at him. _You ridiculous man_ went unspoken, but heavily implied.

Finding a likely branch, he pulled it thoughtfully. “Only one way to test if it can hold a person,” he said. “Like old times, really—Aaron and I were like spider monkeys at school.”

“But you haven’t got long arms,” she began, only to shriek and start forwards when he jumped to brace his feet against the wall. “What in heaven’s name are you doing?”

“I think it’s obvious, Simmons.” He slid his hand up the vine carefully, testing every inch before trusting it with his weight. “Sometimes you have to test things practically. Theory is all—”

The branch snapped in his hand and he made a hasty descent, landing—luckily—on his feet. A man didn’t want to look a fool in front of his wife. She laughed anyway, coming over to examine his hands. “Look what you’ve done to your gloves, darling idiot. Surely there’s a better way.”

“No,” he said, pulling his hands away—not without a wrench, but, dash it, he had his pride.

“But what about insects?”

“It’s September, Simmons. Of course they’re all dead.”

He tried and failed three more times, each successive attempt moving Jemma further from tolerantly amused towards “this is ridiculous, Fitz”. And she didn’t even know that the second failure had been caused by the appearance of a decidedly not-dead insect. “All right,” he admitted finally, examining the shambles of his gloves, “so it’s impossible to climb, thus proving Mrs. Osbourne’s theory of a random robbery incorrect.”

Jemma tucked her arms tightly around the middle, burrowing into her collar until she looked like a bright-eyed bird. “What about the drainpipe?”

What kind of beast was he, to make her stand out in the cold like this? He moved to wrap his arms around her, turning them to better see the pipe. Studying it for a moment as he chafed her arms, he did a few quick calculations in his head and came to a quick conclusion. “You couldn’t climb up it; your weight would pull it away from the wall. I tell you what you _might_ be able to do, and that’s slide down. The theory is still disproved, though.”

She nodded, turning to burrow her nose into his shoulder. “It could support our original theory.”

“Which?” He furrowed his forehead, trying to remember. The last few days had been filled with so much activity, all of it requiring a great deal of mental energy, that anything past Tuesday night had disappeared into the fog: investigation this morning; Smith and his cronies last night; the tour of the factories yesterday. . .the mere act of recalling made him weary. With each ticked item in his diary a millstone weighed around his neck, their complicated and confusing demands at odds with his overwhelming desire to hole up in a room somewhere with his wife and science and no secrets. He longed with sudden sharpness for the heavy heat of Italy, which seemed of its very nature to melt things down to their essential properties.

Then she shivered, and the wide confusing world collapsed back into one person, one problem: his magnificent Jemma, and what he could do to keep her happy and safe. “Woman, you’re freezing!” he yelped, and she rolled her eyes dramatically.

“Excellent deduction, Mr. Holmes. Perhaps we ought to continue this discussion in a more temperate clime? Perhaps over a bowl of Mrs. Hudson’s excellent soup? I believe you expressed an interest in lunch?”

He drove home as quickly as he could and within the hour they found themselves in the study eating a very nice bisque—tinned, unfortunately, but he had never minded that. Cold as she was, Jemma didn’t either, getting halfway down her bowl before she stopped long enough to continue their conversation. “I don’t think a table will work this time,” she said, waving her spoon in the air to cool the soup.

He nodded, having come to the same conclusion during their drive. The suspects all had the same vague motivation and the same general opportunity; each column would essentially be a carbon copy of the one before. “Aaron might come back with new information, but until he does it’s just guesswork. Honestly, Simmons, I’m not sure what we can do next. Mrs. Osbourne cut off our branches of inquiry rather firmly.”

“A country metaphor! Good work, Fitz.” Smirking at his exaggerated frown, she continued more seriously. “She did, unfortunately. We ought to have known the police weren’t such incompetents as that. Should we tell Aaron not to waste his time?”

“Tomorrow, maybe, because—”

“—it’s Friday,” she finished with him. “And I suppose it’s really debts of honor and so on we asked him to investigate. Which is all we’ve got anymore, isn’t it? The hope that _perhaps_ one of his children killed him for the money they would get upon his death.” Her face contorted as though she had swallowed something bitter. “Lord, Fitz, isn’t that awful? How could we hope for that? I can’t blame Mrs. Osbourne for not wanting to consider it.”

He couldn’t either. In fact, her insistence that her children could have nothing to do with her husband’s death had been the only part of her behavior that he understood. “But what’s the alternative, Simmons? Either it was one of them, or someone else at the party had an entirely different reason to want Stafford Osbourne dead, or we’re dealing with the world’s unluckiest thief.”

She canted her head to one side. “Luckiest, wouldn’t it be? How would he get in if he wasn’t lucky?”

“To not steal anything but something worthless?” He shook his head. “That’s—”

“But we don’t know the thief didn’t mean to get something else and change plans suddenly? It would imagine unexpectedly killing someone would be rather alarming.”

“Hang on.” He tapped the table by her hand. “Are we changing tracks? Are we thinking it might be a robbery? Because I don’t see how.”

“He might have got in another way?” she suggested, “but no, someone would have said something. But if it was a guest—only he would have to be on the list—”

“Or he gate-crashed. Or he could have been invited—the Osbournes didn’t know everyone at the party, as we’re well aware.”

“Someone with a grudge against Mr. Osbourne, though? Why would they—” Stopping mid-sentence, she let her spoon fall into her bowl and buried her fingers in her hair with a groan. “Ugh, Fitz! I can’t seem to think in a straight line about this; we’re starting too many hares at once. We have to impose some sort of order on it or we’ll never make progress.”

He threw up his own hands. “What kind of order? If there’s too many hares it’s because they never stop breeding.”

“We’ll just have to pen them,” she said firmly. “We’ve got all afternoon. And we’re clever people; surely we can think of something.”

It took nearly the entirety of the afternoon and most of a fountain pen, but eventually they devised a system that laid out the myriad possibilities in at least a semblance of logical order:

 

Jemma sighed heavily, resting her chin in both hands with her elbows propped on the edge of the desk. “Well, that’s at least clearer. Not to mention it confirms what we already knew: the family is far more likely than anyone else.”

“And it’s not taking into consideration that only the family could change clothes because of the. . . “ Unable to find the word he wanted, he made an exploding motion with one hand while adding an asterisk to the bottom of the page with the other.

“Arterial spatter.” She glanced up sharply, a line between her eyebrows. “Actually, Fitz, that isn’t really true, is it? Well, it is, but not entirely. A person couldn’t go back to the party with blood all over them, but they could leave the party before the body was discovered. Oh, only—”

“Someone with blood all over would be a bit conspicuous on the street.”

“Unless they had an accomplice with a car?” she offered, and they considered it for a half second before coming to the same conclusion.

He poked at the paper with the tip of the pen. “If he had an accomplice, he planned the murder, and if he planned the murder he would have brought a gun. We couldn’t have heard anything over the noise of the party anyway.”

The crevice grew deeper and she reached out to snag the pen from his hand. Rather than writing, though, she simply traced a series of intersecting ovals in the blank margins. “But that suggests it was an unplanned attack, doesn’t it. And then we’re bang up against the robbery again, which doesn’t make _sense_.”

Staring at her tracings, he let his mind follow similarly-shaped paths through the clues amassed thus far. Not many, he knew. A lot of guesses and assumptions, that was all, a lot of half-facts and theories that made sense logically, but not necessarily practically. And what could those come to in the end? Nothing without more proof. No doubt, he admitted with an inward sigh, the police faced exactly the same problem. Like Jemma’s drawings—of atoms, he now recognized, at least the popular if incorrect understanding of atoms—every idea swooped up and away before returning to orbit the same two questions: how and why did the murderer come to be in that room? Was it a robbery gone wrong, or something more willfully sinister?

He examined the strata again. They had already decided which group of suspects was most likely, and he felt confident in their ranking. Perhaps there was a way of weighing the _motives_ to discover which most likely? If he assigned each a point according to their rank under the suspects. . . but added a point to signify the ranking of the suspects. . .

A soft clatter broke into his thoughts: first the thud of pen hitting paper, then a _tick-tick-tick_ as it rolled across the desk and onto the floor. “Fitz,” Jemma said, straightening, something dawning in her eyes, “why doesn’t the robbery make sense?”

He could have provided her with any of the dozen reasons they had already discussed, but he could tell by the way that she leaned towards him with the thrilled energy that denoted a breakthrough that the question served merely as an opening salvo and waited for her to go on.

“Because,” she said, “we’re not putting the pieces together correctly. We assume that if robbery was the motive then it must have been an outside party, because the children would have no reason to steal from their parents—they get generous allowances, and larger sums would come to them upon their father’s death anyway. But, Fitz, just think: we’ve guessed any of them might have needed more money than they could get their hands on at the time, but we immediately jumped to them _killing_ their father. Why should they do that? Wouldn’t it be easier to just—”

Her voice had risen as she spoke, higher and higher until the sun broke over the horizon and he saw by the light that had already hit her: “to take what they needed!” he exclaimed over the end of her sentence. She nodded, throwing up her hands with a little laugh.

“They weren’t to know the stocks weren’t in the safe, were they? No one would question if one of the Osbournes sold Osbourne stock.”

He turned his seat to better face her, mind already whirring. “Five thousand pounds is all well and good, but if you don’t _have_ to kill your father for it—”

“Exactly! He wouldn’t have expected to find his parents there—”

“Why didn’t he stop, then, once he saw his mother? Pass it off as something else?”

“I don’t know, Fitz. Perhaps he was desperate. Perhaps he tried to reason with her. Perhaps he tried to get the necklace when he saw the safe was empty. Or—” She reached out to smack his arm lightly, caught in the throes of a train of thought moving too quickly to enumerate the stops: “Fitz, we don’t know what happened in that room. All we have is the newspaper report from an anonymous source; it may not be what Mrs. Osbourne recalls at all. She may not recall anything. Or she may, and have agreed to this story to protect—”

“Larry,” he said, finally having realized that, at some point, they had switched to the masculine pronoun. “It has to be Larry, right? He’s her pet, after all. And if it was Daphne or Iris—even Budgie—they wouldn’t be so determined we look into it.”

She nodded, suddenly somber. “It fits, doesn’t it? A logical explanation of the confirmed facts and a decent stab at the nebulous ones. He came to the party when no one expected he would to steal from his parents, and when he was surprised in the act he panicked, grabbed the poker, and hit them.”

Oddly, the hypothesis’s simplicity lent it more credibility—wasn’t it true that the most elegant, the truest answers were usually the least complicated? He leaned back in his chair to consider, staring at a corner of the ceiling as his mind probed at the weak spots. Jemma did the same aloud, as was her habit. “Mrs. Osbourne couldn’t tell us where the stocks were because Larry has them. Although, wouldn’t you think then that she’d tell Iris and Daphne they’d been sold? An easy way out of that problem.”

“Couldn’t,” he said, “because what if Larry sold them after? It would be suspicious. That’s easy. What I don’t understand is why he took the necklace.”

“To remove suspicion?” she offered. “Or perhaps to sell. It was very valuable, for all he knew.”

He shook his head. “Ten years ago was 1928, yes? Larry would have been twenty, he would have been at university—he might even have been the reason that they had to hock the real one. He might have known it was paste.”

“Daphne didn’t, at least.”

“Yes, but would you tell Daphne anything you wanted to keep secret?” She acknowledged his point with a quick nod. “Though, I don’t know why it had to be such a great secret. Why does it matter if they’re real or fake?”

Laughter bubbled up in her warm gaze. “Darling idiot, do you know, one of the things I love most about you is that you have absolutely no understanding of the aristocratic class. Certainly it matters if they’re real. If they’re fake the Osbournes lose face dramatically; they’ve been pretending a certain level of wealth they haven’t got. Of course it’s terribly hypocritical. Nearly every old family has had to turn at least some of their jewels to paste—even my Uncle Morton, because of—well, Roger.”

He spoke quickly, hoping to take her mind off her dead cousin. One murder at a time was more than enough, in his opinion. “If everyone’s done it, though—”

She sighed and rolled her eyes. “It’s not that the jewels are fake, it’s that people _know_ they’re fake. Particularly the new aristocracy like my father, or the new money—I know _you_ don’t care about it, but most people do. Think of poor Sylvia’s father.”

“Ah, yes.” He rolled his head to look at her. Although he had become used to hearing Sylvia’s name coupled with terms of pity, Mrs. Osbourne’s sympathy hinted at troubles larger than poverty and a rotten fiancé. “What happened to Sylvia’s parents, Jemma? I thought they died.”

Her lips flattened into a thin line, and she glanced away for a minute, staring at her twisting fingers. “I don’t—well, Fitz, it’s—” She sighed. “You mustn’t say anything to her, ever. Do you promise?”

“Of course,” he swore instantly, knowing she wouldn’t have felt it necessary to ask if it wasn’t of utmost importance.

Although they were alone in the room, she darted a glance around the corners before leaning in and lowering her voice. “Her father killed himself, I’m afraid. And her mother died in her sleep shortly after that—the coroner called it ‘accidental death’ but no one can really say how she came to take more veronal than she should have, can they?”

He let out a long, slow breath. “Poor girl. At least—when—”

“After the Crash, of course. Well, it wasn’t uncommon then, Fitz, don’t you remember?”

He had been at Winchester at the time, more intent on scraping by in Latin and avoiding as much trouble as possible than keeping up on world news. Still, now he thought about it he did recall several of his classmates disappearing mid-term, called away by “a sudden death in the family” and never returning. “It’s never not a tragedy, though.”

“No,” she agreed, and reached her hand into the space between them. He took it gently, rubbing his thumb across her knuckles. “She doesn’t speak about it. I got all that at the Gaudy, before Weaver introduced us. It happened just before, you see, so it was in the papers—her classmates still talked about it. She can’t seem to escape being pitied.”

Something sparked in the back of his mind, and his thumb slowed its motion. “Before the Gaudy, or before she entered Oxford?”

Jemma canted her head curiously. “Before she went up. Why?”

Their hands slackened between them as he turned his whole body to face her. “So around the same time she and Mr. Osbourne quarreled?”

“Yes.” Then, reading his mind— “No, Fitz. No.”

“Jemma, I know she’s your friend, but—”

“Fitz, she wasn’t there.”

“But she was invited,” he pressed, “she’s a beneficiary of the will, she’s in need of money—”

She yanked away and got to her feet, whirling away from him with a glare. “Yes, and she _wasn’t there_. Lady Hermione knows her, I know her, Daphne Osbourne was on the hunt for her because she hoped she might appear with Mark in tow. She couldn’t have been there, Fitz.”

“All right,” he said. “All right. I’m sorry. We have to consider all the options, though, right?”

Still facing away, she crossed her arms with a huff. “Why is it always my friends and family coming under suspicion?”

“Because until I married you, I could count my friends and family on one hand.” He stood as well, reaching across the desk for her elbow and peering around the corner of her cheek to try to catch her eye. “Simmons, I really am sorry. You’re right, and I’m glad for it—it isn’t as though Sylvia doesn’t have enough else to worry about without being accused of murder.”

If possible, she grew stiffer under his hand, her breath coming more quickly through her nose. He watched it with growing alarm, rapidly reviewing what he could have said to make it worse—answering her question lightly? Not giving Sylvia’s situation its proper gravity? Was his apology not earnest enough, because he meant it and he wasn’t quite sure how to say it better—

Then she turned to him and kissed his check before sliding back to her chair. “It’s all right, Fitz. Only she hasn’t got anything to do with this, so perhaps we ought to return to the topic at hand?”

He hesitated, not willing to sit just yet. Her words might be conciliatory, but her posture remained uneasy. “Are you sure?”

“Of course. There’s no need to talk about it anymore.” Rolling her eyes at his reticence, she tugged at his hand. “Sit down, foolish man. We’ve only a few more minutes before we have to go up and dress. Far more vital to the investigation are the following questions: who precisely gave the interview to the papers—we forgot to ask Mrs. Osbourne—and did Larry keep any clothing at his parents’ house when he packed up in the aftermath of the Great Row?”

“He might have been able to use his father’s,” he pointed out.

She shuddered. “Awfully cold-blooded, to put on the clothes of a man he had just murdered. How quickly could he do it, do you think?”

“Alone?” He considered. It took him a great deal of time to put on evening clothes if he attempted to do it without Lane’s assistance, but then he didn’t have years of practice, and Larry did. “You said the murder would have happened ten or fifteen minutes before we found the bodies, yeah?”

“Yes, but it was only a guess. I’m still not a doctor, recall.”

“And then another—what, ten minutes for Lady Hermione to find him? At least?”

“That seems fair.”

“It’s possible,” he said cautiously, “especially if he only had to change his shirt. The blood would, erm, likely—”

She finished briskly, thankfully taking the burden of thinking too much about it from him. “Soak in to the dark material of his suit. Yes, I expect so. Perhaps we should time you tonight; that might give us a decent estimate.”

“Turn and turn about’s fair play. Why shouldn’t we time you as well?”

Waving a hand, she dismissed the idea airily. “Someone would have noticed if either Iris or Daphne suddenly appeared in a different dress. I believe Iris was wearing red, anyway. And even if they had changed, it wouldn’t have taken anywhere near twenty minutes. Frocks are so simple these days—slip on, slip off. As I believe you know from personal experience.”

Blood rose into his face as he cleared his throat, shoving hard at the series of pleasant memories that appeared to demand his attention. “Wha—well—it always seems like longer when we dress together.”

“Because we get distracted, Fitz.” She smirked, though the rosy tint to her cheeks betrayed her own parade of images. “And because the longest bit is the toilette—dressing your hair, applying cosmetics, so forth and so on. That would have already been done.”

He nodded, willing to take her word for it. He didn’t pay a great deal of attention to what exactly she did at her little table, too busy watching her grace to enumerate the steps. At some point she sprayed perfume on her wrists and touched it to her ears. Further than that he could not go. Picking up the pen from where it landed on the carpet, he paused as an idea sprung fully formed into his mind, having apparently formulated without his knowledge while his active thoughts strayed down less bloody paths.

As he straightened slowly, Jemma leaned across the desk. “You’ve had a thought.”

Of course she could see it, as easily as he knew her many different _I’ve got an idea_ expressions. He tapped one finger on the Strata without looking. “Are we eliminating Daphne and Iris from suspicion, then, because they weren’t blood spattered and so couldn’t have been in the room?”

“Oh!” Her eyes grew wide and she sat back in her chair, her bottom lip caught between her teeth. “It does seem that way, doesn’t it? From the actual murder, at least, though they could still have information they aren’t sharing. If it was Budgie, for example—but I don’t know that he’d fit in Mr. Osbourne’s clothes. Or—”

“Or,” he said, pointing one finger, “or Iris, with the red dress, killed him and came back down. I might believe it of her. Talk about cold-blooded.”

To his surprise, she shook her head as she got to her feet. “I’m not so certain, Fitz. Still waters run deep, you know; it wouldn’t astonish me if she felt more than she let on. Do you know some people find me a bit of a cold fish?”

“You?” he said as he rose as well, more bewildered by the end of her sentence than the beginning. “The fourth day we knew each other you cried in my arms in the middle of Meryton High Street. And goodness knows you smile more than I do.”

“Which doesn’t require smiling very often, but even so.” She shrugged. “I wonder what Budgie would say about her? Perhaps we’ll be lucky enough to ask him this evening. Speaking of which—”

“We should be getting ready.” With a gallant sweep of his arm, he indicated the door. “Shall I go first, since I take longer to dress et cetera?”

She scoffed, as he had meant her to, and went out before him anyway. “We’ve made good progress, don’t you think, Fitz?”

“I do.”

“It’s odd,” she said as they trailed up the stairs, “I’ve been turning all this over and over in my mind and all it’s done is made it more muddled. Things are always clearer after speaking to you. Why haven’t we done it before?”

As always, she had hit the nail bang on the head: things _were_ always clearer after they spoke, and it _was_ odd that they hadn’t managed to come together before. Especially since they had taken the investigation on together. Their inquiries into Osbourne’s death differed from her work in the lab or his with the Board, which improved with the other’s insight but could and would continue without it. This project could not be accomplished separately. “Well,” he said, taking the steps two at a time so he could open their bedroom door for her, “we’ve been busy, I expect. We had Aaron on Tuesday, we had things on Monday, we went to the cinema on Wednesday, and then last night—”

He gulped back the dangerous words quickly, feeling the lump plash into his stomach like a rock the size of his fist. He had been about to tell her, casually, without thinking, endangering her work and her safety with as much forethought as he might warn her to take an umbrella if it looked like rain. The day together had lulled him into a false sense of security; these last few hours, he had nearly got the serenity with her he had wished for in the Osbournes’ back alley. But it had only been a pocket of peace, not the world. Much as she turned his life from drab to gold, not even her alchemy could transform the threats that surrounded them into something less lethal. He had to remain on guard at every moment, or he would let the snake into the garden.

“Fitz?”

He met her eyes with difficulty, knowing without a doubt what he would find there. Sure enough: confusion, concern, questioning. Something twisted the corner of her mouth, lurked at the edge of her eye, set her fingers fidgeting. _Please don’t ask me_ , he begged, trying to keep his own face impassive, _oh, God, please don’t let her ask me_.

Then she dropped her gaze—just for a second, a flicker—but when they met again, a curtain had come over it. Lips in a thin, tight smile, she ran her hand gently down his arm. “Remember, don’t begin dressing until I’m ready to time you. We have to be scientific about these things.”

“And everything,” he said, trying not to heave a sigh of relief. She hadn’t asked. He might still be keeping an enormous secret, but at least it wasn’t an outright lie. Clearly, God had an interest in making sure people didn’t sin—there was no commandment against keeping secrets, after all. Sending a _thank you_ heavenwards, he made for the bathroom and his shaving supplies while Jemma disappeared into her room for clothes.

Over the white lather, he practiced keeping an even face while thinking of Mr. Smith. If the look in his blue eyes resembled that in Jemma’s brown ones before she left him, he was too busy to realize it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Check out that amazing list/graphic by Jessie, aka cardb0rdeaux! She made Fitz a letterhead, guys! Every so often I've pulled it up on my phone to look at it because she did such a great job. 
> 
> Sad news: I will not be posting a chapter next Monday, because I got called to serve my civic duty and it's severely cramping my writing time. I want to make sure you guys don't have a long wait later so I need to give myself a little time to get ahead. I'm sorry!


	16. Everyone's A Critic

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just in case you forgot, we last left our intrepid heroes preparing for a party—Daphne Osbourne's art show, actually, at which they expect to finally meet Larry, their new prime suspect.

Jemma made Fitz dress and undress three separate times—for the experiment’s sake, of course, as it would be irresponsible to draw conclusions from a single trial—and would likely have insisted on a fourth had he not caught a glimpse of his watch while he struggled with his cufflinks and let out a yelp. “Simmons! We’re not going to have enough time to eat!”

“Of course we will,” she said firmly, ostensibly recording how long it took him to put his shirt on but actually watching the movement of his trapezius through the fine white linen. She may have set herself the rule of _noli me tangere_ but that by no means forbade her to admire. “I wouldn’t dream of asking you to be charming on nothing more than tinned bisque. And I’m frankly ravenous myself.”

He paused with his coat flung halfway across his shoulders and dramatically dropped his jaw. “You, my bird-like wife? Ravenous is a word in your vocabulary?”

“I have a superlative vocabulary,” she sniffed, “and yes, even I require more than one meal in a twenty-four hour period of time.”

Turning to the mirror on her dressing table, he bent over to get a more direct look and seized the ends of his bowtie. “Always prone to exaggeration. You ate dinner last night, didn’t you?”

Her breath caught in her throat. She had forgotten that she had broken her engagement with Fitz “for dinner with a friend”. The burning swallow of unidentified liquid she had tossed back in Charles’s subterranean cathedral hardly counted as sustenance, but telling him so would only lead to questions she hadn’t yet determined how to answer. Even the Soviet Club fed her. But she couldn’t _lie_. Not only would he see through her in an instant, but the chasm of betrayal between _not telling_ and _actively lying_ gapped wide. Misdirection, then? “If I can’t tell you what I ate,” she tried cautiously, “does it count?”

Fortunately, making sure the sides of his bowtie matched took up enough of his attention that he didn’t notice she didn’t actually answer the question. “That sounds like an argument I would make. You would tell me that I still received all the benefits of eating whether I remembered it or not.” Making one final adjustment, he turned for her approval. “Am I straight?”

She got up from her spot on the bed and stood on tiptoe for a minor tweak. “Well, I feel as though I haven’t eaten, so it’s a moot point. There.” Pressing a kiss to the corner of his mouth, she let her hands trail down his lapels as she rolled back to flat feet. “Now you’re perfect.”

“Aren’t I always?”

“Oh no,” she said seriously. “Hasn’t anyone told you that you scrape your teeth on your fork when you eat? It’s a near fatal flaw.”

His hands came up to rest lightly at her waist. “Near fatal? What saves me?”

“Clearly your ability to meet my insatiable passion for expensive lab equipment. If you lost all your money I’d divorce you immediately.”

“Sure you would,” he murmured, the light in his eyes softening to the comforting glow of a fire’s last embers. She curled up like a cat in the warmth of his affections as his thumb started circling gently at her hip. “Permission to salute?”

“Permission granted.”

His lips met hers softly but firmly, quirked up at the edges but not enough to impede their motion. Briefly thankful she didn’t wear lipstick, Jemma shut her eyes and swayed against his chest. A grin of her own tugged at her mouth when his hands splayed across the small of her back to hold her closer to him. She had anticipated and desired exactly that result. Kissing Fitz was great fun, thrilling, and heady, but more than anything else, it was overwhelmingly familiar and peaceful—like returning home after a long journey through the wide world to your own chair and slippers and books, and sitting back and knowing you were in your own place at last. And perhaps that summed it up, really: Fitz was her home. She resided in his glower and his curls and his brogue; she wandered up and down the halls of his brain and went to sleep every night tucked up firmly under the cover of his tremendous heart. His pulse thumped under her fingertips and his mouth moved over hers and she resolved with every shaky breath that nothing would threaten him, not if she could help it. She would do anything to protect him.

“All right,” he said, pulling away to rest his forehead against hers, “much as I’d rather continue that indefinitely—”

“—we’ve work to do,” she sighed.

Nodding regretfully, he nevertheless made no move to release her. She moved one hand to pat his cheek fondly, then ran her fingers around to weave through the short hair at the back of his neck. “We’re a bit overdressed, but what do you say to fish-and-chips?”

He turned his head to kiss the heel of her hand before moving away for one last glance in the mirror. “I say you are a pearl above any price.”

After a hasty meal at their local shop, they flagged down a cab and provided the address Andrews had hunted up for them while they went over clues. The cabbie’s bushy eyebrows knitted, and he pushed his cap back on his head. “There’s supposed to be a bit of a do down that way, mum and sir. Might be difficult to get through.”

“What kind of do?” Fitz asked.

The cabbie shrugged. “Just heard through a mate, who heard from another mate, you know how it is, sir.”

Receiving the answer to his silent question with a glance at her, Fitz opened the door and handed her in. “It’ll be fine. We’re anxious not to miss this appointment.”

“Righto,” the cabbie said, and flicked on his _occupied_ light. With a great deal of skill, he wended his way through the city so efficiently that Jemma began to believe that he had made up the supposed obstacle to inspire a better tip. Until, that was, just as they passed Chelsea Bridge, the cab slowed to a crawl, and then stopped.

“What is it?” Fitz asked, craning to peer through the windscreen. She did the same, catching hurried glimpses of a shoving, straining mass of people radiating from the square ahead into the street surrounding it. The cabbie threw the car into park and heaved himself halfway out for a better view. Shouts spilled through the open door in an incoherent babble.

Ducking back in, the cabbie turned to them with a somber face. “It’s that do I told you about—blackshirts, it looks, like, mum and sir, and a bit of a dust-up too.”

Fascists. Jemma caught Fitz’s eye, questioning; he returned it grimly. No one wanted to get on the wrong side of that crowd, which had a reputation for roughness. They marched through the streets in their matching shirts of doom, all big, tall young men with stone faces and fire in their eyes. In comparison, the socialists Jemma had been hobnobbing with were as frightening as guests at a Sunday School picnic. Well, she amended, some of them, at least.

“Do you want I should turn around?” the cabbie asked. “It’ll be difficult getting through this mess.”

“We have an appointment.”

“We’ve got to keep going.”

He eyed them worriedly, but shrugged and put the car back into hear. Inching along a cephalopod-like speed, they had plenty of opportunity to observe the demonstration as it ebbed and flowed around them: papers flying in the air and trampled underfoot; bobbies throwing out their arms and clubs to create barriers; shouting men in rough coats; the preternaturally calm men in the center with voices like pipe organs. Jemma couldn’t quite hear what anyone was saying, but their faces, all superior and icy, spoke loudly enough. They looked nothing at all like Charles, but the same horror crept through her. A shiver ran down her spine, and she turned away from the window to reach blindly for Fitz’s hand.

He took it without looking, the pad of his other thumb beating against his lower lip as he stared into the scrum. “Jemma, I forgot to tell you—I have to go into the office tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow,” she repeated, bewildered. “On Saturday, Fitz?”

“Yes. I’ve, um, got a project I’ve been neglecting that I really ought to begin. I’ll be home for dinner.”

“You’ll be gone all day?”

“I expect so,” he said, still watching steadily out the window.

She expected him to invite her along or, at the very least, elaborate, but he did not. The taxi crept another meter forwards. Outside, the rabble’s roar took on a shrill note. “Is it something I can help with?” she offered finally, when the motion of his thumb across her knuckles became chafing in its distraction.

He turned to her then, offering an apologetic smile that met neither his eyes nor hers. “It hasn’t got any biological components, so it would be dull for you. I’m sure you can find a much more interesting way to spend your Saturday. Perhaps you and Mam—”

“We have been neglecting her of late, but Fitz, surely—”

“I was thinking, since we’re all so busy, maybe now is the time to re-paper the downstairs? You could look at papers and things and we could have it done on days we’re all out.”

Her objections flew clean out of her mind. “Fitz! Do you mean that?” She and Jean had only been obliquely hinting for the last year, but he maintained that the hassle and expense of redecorating were foolish when their wallpaper was still perfectly good. They had been developing a plot to force his hand which was, in all honesty, better left unattempted. But this! Unlooked-for luck.

“Do I often say things I don’t mean?”

“Of course, never.” She laughed and squeezed his hand, regretting sharply even the highly distracted presence of the cabbie. “Thank you, Fitz.”

“You’re welcome.”

Visions of wallpaper dancing in her head, Jemma nearly forgot the ruckus outside. Their home boasted quite a few large walls; she wondered if it would be more cost-effective to pick one paper and buy the whole lot, or to choose several of various patterns and prices. No doubt it depended on how much they needed. “Fitz,” she began as she turned to him, “have you got an estimate of—”

He wasn’t listening. He hadn’t even flinched when she began, and didn’t hum a question when she broke off. Instead, he had resumed staring out the window, worrying the skin at the edge of his thumbnail with his forehead wrinkled by deep, troubled thoughts. Not about wallpaper, surely. Even the cost wouldn’t cause quite that level of concern. No—no, she realized, joy leeching out of her, Fitz had tossed out re-papering as one tosses a bone to keep a dog from chewing the furniture, trying to distract her from whatever project he had been neglecting and couldn’t anymore. Something he didn’t want her to ask about. Whitehall, then? But why wouldn’t he just say? The cabbie’s presence made no difference; he could tell her with his hands or his eyes as easily as his words. Did he not want her to even _know_ about it? In heaven’s name, why?

Just as she reached this unanswerable conclusion, the cabbie heaved a sigh of relief. “There it is, mum and sir. You want I should wait?”

Fitz made no move to reply, so she did, answering in the affirmative. “If you feel safe enough, that is?”

He smiled stoutly. “Oh, yes, mum. These people just make a deal of noise and bother. They’ve not ever hurt anyone. I’ll be right as rain.”

“Thanks very much, then.” Taking a deep breath, she nudged Fitz gently with her knee. “Ready?”

“Hmm? Oh, yes.” Turning from the window then, he looked as though he had been awoken from a trance. “I was just noticing the other guests—look, Simmons, are those men or women or one of each?”

She looked where he indicated. A couple, matching in height and hair length, both with old pullovers and enormous Oxford bags, disappeared through the doorway. “At least we practiced being overdressed at dinner.”

“Nothing for it,” he sighed, “it’ll just have to be part of our notoriety.” Then, sliding out his side, he hurried around to open her door and offered his hand with a flourish. “Ready, Mr. Holmes?”

Her gaze flew from his hand to his face, eyes wide. He laughed, wiggling his fingers with one eyebrow raised. “It’s fitting tonight, isn’t it? I’ll ask the foolish questions and you observe everyone’s secrets. Are you coming?”

He misunderstood, then. The inversion of their old joke hadn’t made her head spin; his rapid shift in mood startled her enough on its own. From pondering to playful in two seconds flat—and when they were about to go to a party, too, an occasion which usually resulted in an attitude of patient martyrdom. What in heaven’s name, she asked herself again.

“Jemma?”

And now the lightness dropped away entirely, leaving only concerned wrinkles at the corner of his eyes and the flat, solicitous line of his lips. And that wouldn’t do, of course—whatever else, they had to make the most of this opportunity if they ever wanted to wash their hands of this investigation. Anything else would simply have to wait. Mustering up a smile, she settled her fur and accepted his help out of the cab. “Of course, Dr. Watson. Lead on.”

The house, it appeared, had suffered the fate of many of its brethren and been broken up into individual flats; consultation with the labels by the mailboxes revealed that their destination lay at the very top. Fitz began grumbling halfway up the third flight. She, not so reliant on Macpherson’s lifts, managed a little better, but by the time they reached the top of the last staircase she had wrapped her fur around her arm and began hoping fervently that whatever drinks Daphne provided had been properly chilled.

“Imagine getting ice up here,” Fitz said, reading her mind as he mopped his face with a handkerchief—completely unnecessarily, she thought, rolling her eyes. “Why would anyone live up so many stairs? You realize we may be level with the clouds.”

Contenting herself with another eyeroll, she rapped sharply on the door only to feel it fall open under her knuckles. Fitz’s eyebrows flickered, skeptical of Miss Murgatroyd’s trust in her fellow man, then slowly raised towards his hairline as he looked over her shoulder. “Never mind,” he said, “I know why you would live here.”

Trailing him into the flat, Jemma agreed. Though she knew logically it must have begun life as the house’s attic, she found it difficult to reconcile the word with the open, window-walled room around them. Even after dark she could imagine how the light would come in through the skylights, turning the room to gold or silver; the space felt airy despite the noisy hordes of people milling about. Fitz took her elbow and steered her towards a gap in the crowd, trying to move away from the door. “I was going to suggest we divide and conquer,” he said, bending down to her ear, “but I think we’d never find each other again.”

“Do you think we can find something to drink, though?”

“Or die trying.”

After a brief battle, they managed to snag two glasses of wine, which appeared to be the only choice that wasn’t a suspicious clear liquid. Fitz took a long swig, swallowed, and coughed, putting his hand over her glass. “Don’t do it, Jemma. Even I know this is dreadful.”

A quick sip proved him right, but she merely wrinkled her nose and took another. Better this than the other; anything one could only drink a thimbleful of was probably best avoided. “Do you see anyone we recognize?”

Leveraging his small bit of height, he tried to peer over the crowd. “No. But I can’t see much of anything at all; everyone’s all clumped together. Should we look at the paintings? That’s what everyone’s here for, right?”

She agreed with a quick nod, holding her glass close to her chest until they stumbled into an empty semi-circle in front of one of the several large canvases. Glancing around, she wondered why no one seemed interested in the reason for the event—until she looked at the painting and started, nearly sloshing half her glass onto the wooden floor. “Good lord!” she exclaimed despite herself.

Beside her, Fitz cocked his head and screwed up one eye, whether to get a different perspective or in pain she couldn’t say. “But what is it?”

She matched his posture and hoped for the best. Every shade of red splashed indiscriminately across the canvas, swirled with orange and purple and surrounding a giant black shape that would have been a circle if not for the jutting triangular protrusion off one side. “I’m not certain,” she said, “but it rather looks like what happens behind my eyes when I’ve got a headache.”

“Perhaps we just don’t understand it.”

“No.” A voice came from behind them. “There’s nothing particularly to understand, I’m afraid.”

In unison, they turned from shoulder-to-shoulder to stand chest-to-chest, the better to see the speaker. Iris gestured to the painting with the empty glass she held. “I believe she calls this one ‘Study #2’ and thinks herself very clever.”

“Study #2,” Jemma echoed, turning back to the painting. “Study of red? Or is it—”

“Oh, no.”

She glanced back sharply. Fitz’s face had gone slightly green, and he took a gulp of the terrible wine without looking away from the canvas. “Why did she do that?” he asked hoarsely. “Why would anyone—”

“I shudder to think what ‘Study #1’ looked like,” Iris said drily, ruffling her hair and smoothing it down again. “This is quite bad enough. In more ways than one.”

It certainly looked like a very bad piece of art, though Jemma didn’t consider herself an expert in any sense of the word. What other way could it be? “I still don’t—” she began, stopping when Fitz nudged her with a small shake of his head.

“That’s a nose,” he said, apropos of nothing she could see. Then, looking again, she realized in a flash what he meant: the garish reds weren’t being sucked into the grave-black splotch, but streaming from it. Study #2 portrayed Daphne’s dead father. Jemma gasped aloud, putting her hand over her mouth.

“See it now?” Iris’s mouth twisted. “I tried to tell her, but what can one do? No one tells Daphne no; she simply doesn’t understand the word. I’m only grateful Mother never pays attention to Daphne’s messes. This might end her entirely.”

“I don’t know,” Fitz said, taking Jemma by the shoulder and turning them both firmly away from the nightmarish image. “It takes a lot more to do in a woman like your mother than you might think.”

“And what do you know about it?” Iris scoffed, pushing her glasses up her nose.

Fitz’s lips thinned out, and Jemma rushed to speak before he could. “She seemed quite strong when we saw her this morning—strong in spirit, I mean; obviously she’s been in ill health. But she still has plenty of moxie.”

_Moxie?_ Fitz asked. She made a face, secretly congratulating herself on distracting him.

Oblivious to their exchange, Iris flagged down someone with a tray and swapped her empty glass with a full one. “I’m glad she pulled herself together for you. When I’m there, she divides her time between staring out the front windows disconsolately and reading every line of the newspaper. Of every newspaper. What did you talk about?”

“Oh,” Jemma said, “this and that. Sylvia Forbes. The will, which we’ve already discussed with you.”

“She tried to get us to give up the case,” Fitz added. Jemma shot a look at him from the corner of her eye, but he twitched the corner of his mouth and said _wait_. “We think she’s protecting someone.”

Jemma all but staggered, holding the stem of her glass so tightly her knuckles turned white. They had _certainly_ not discussed this strategy; in fact, she believed common wisdom dictated that one did not casually throw out one’s theories to potential suspects which, technically, Iris still was. At the very best he had just revealed their hand to someone who could accidentally pass the information to the murderer. The worst didn’t bear thinking about. What was he doing?

But Iris merely smiled, her mouth a mirthless parabola. “I rather think she’d have to actually remember what happened for that to be true. And she doesn’t.”

Fitz leaned forward, almost imperceptibly. “Oh, really? We thought she must, or who gave the papers that detailed description of what happened? The police are rarely so forthcoming.”

“The question on everybody’s lips, Mr. Fitz-Simmons. It was none of us, and the servants swear they haven’t talked to anyone from the press. They could have been fooled, of course, but personally, I believe the papers made it all up.” She took a sip and grimaced, holding the glass away from her as though she could see the misshapen bacteria. “Good God, this is awful. How embarrassing. But what could you expect from this crowd?”

“This crowd?” Jemma asked. “Are these not your friends as well?”

She shook her head emphatically, a little sloppily. “Lord, no. This is Daphne’s latest set—bohemians and radicals, free love, that sort of thing—she’s made this friend, Ann Murgatroyd, who’s convinced her to swear off men and devote herself to Art and the Female Bond, whatever the hell that means—” Her sentence became a high bark of laughter. “Oh well! At least it won’t last long.”

Jemma and Fitz exchanged a worried glance. For some people, this level of candor was ordinary behavior; for Iris Evans, it was frankly alarming. Language? Laughter? Where had Ice Queen Iris gone? Jemma couldn’t believe two glasses of this rotten wine could actually intoxicate anyone, but there seemed no other explanation for Iris’s behavior. “Mrs. Evans,” she asked, handing her mostly-full glass to Fitz, “are you feeling well?”

“Perfectly.” Iris’s eyes slid back to her sister’s tasteless depiction of their father’s corpse. “Only, of course, it does get rather exhausting trying to manage everything without help—Daphne isn’t serious, Larry doesn’t worry about the right things, my husband—” She threw a helpless hand in the air. “But one must keep up appearances, mustn’t one? And I do hate to disappoint Daffy. She’s so silly, but so dear. I admire her, really.” Peering around, she waved her glass a bit. “Perhaps I’d like another one of these. Or more of the other.”

“You drank some of that clear stuff?” Fitz asked, alarmed.

“What else is it for?” Iris answered, as though it were obvious. “It smelt of turpentine, but I seem to feel all right so far.”

Jemma could feel her eyes widening. Blotto, definitely blotto. Which threw a spanner into their entire plan for the evening, as her white-knight of a husband would certainly never abandon a lady in distress and would therefore be unable to accompany her in searching out the elusive eldest Osbourne. She could manage on her own, perhaps, but it wouldn’t be ideal; under pressure, she was liable to completely forget whatever subtlety she had learned over the last year and spoil the entire investigation. “Fitz,” she began, not sure how she meant to end, “do you think—”

He met her eyes quickly, already nodding. “I agree entirely, Simmons, we ought—”

But the end of his sentence disappeared in the most enormous clatter, a screech and a sound like the cymbals Mack played at Lola and the crystal crunch of a hundred breaking glasses, and a deep bellow Jemma only barely recognized as belonging to Budgie Evans: “What do you mean you haven’t got any money? You have more than you know what to do with, you…” followed by a string of words that made Jemma blush furiously. Another voice rumbled a conciliatory response, but Budgie, having none of it, merely redoubled his tirade, utilizing conjugations of curses she didn’t even know existed. Another crash. The crowd around them surged towards one of the walls.

“Damn that man!” Iris cried, throwing down her own glass so the wine splattered on the hem of her gown. “Why can he not ever behave decently?”

“Jemma.” Fitz grabbed her with his little finger, both hands full, and ducked his head to ask as quietly as he could, “The cab?”

“Iris and Budgie,” she said, immediately understanding, “yes, of course. We’ll call another one.”

A brief flicker of a smile, the glasses passed into her hands, and he disappeared into the melee. She put them down on the floor and went to Iris, her hands fluttering between them. “Mrs. Evans, I think you had better go home. We have a cab downstairs; perhaps you and Mr. Evans will take it? We’d be glad if you did.”

With the sudden grace of a cat, Iris reached out to take Jemma’s hands in both of hers. “Mrs. Fitz-Simmons, do you know, you’re awfully decent, and I’ve been horrible. I’m so afraid, you see.”

Jemma tried to breathe slowly, though her heart pounded like a drum. “Of what, Iris?”

“Of nothing ever being straight again,” Iris said, her face crumpling.

As though anything could be, Jemma thought, remembering the weeks and months following Macpherson’s murder. Violent death had that effect. The blow that killed Stafford Osbourne fell on his family as well, sending cracks radiating out through their previously serene lives; even pasted back together, one would always be able to see what had happened. Glancing quickly around to verify that everyone’s attention was elsewhere, Jemma dared to put her arm around Iris’s shoulder comfortingly. “It won’t always be so dreadful,” she promised. “Once you go home and have a good cry, you’ll feel better.”

Iris sniffled, pushing her fingers up under her glasses to rub at her eyes. “I don’t cry. I didn’t even cry when Dad died, though I was very fond of him, really. I’ve never found weeping to be very useful.”

“Nor had I,” Jemma said, “but sometimes it’s the most appropriate response. Come, dear, let’s go. Fitz will bring Budgie.”

Shoving his way through the crowd, Fitz felt a good deal less confident in his ability. By the time he reached the center of the storm, more parties than just Budgie and his victim had joined the fight. Even Daphne, her hair flying like a cloud around her, had shoved her way between the two combatants and was trying to keep them apart with her tiny twig arms. “Stop, for God’s sake, you’re spoiling everything!” she shouted, stomping her foot.

The man not Budgie wiped a stream of blood from his nose and ended by smearing it all over his face. “I swear, Daph, I’m trying—”

“You certainly are,” Budgie shouted, lunging over the arms of the men holding him back and slipping a bit in the glass, “so trying I want to bash your brains in sometimes! Why can’t you be a sport?”

“I told you I haven’t got any money! I’d help you if I could, but I can’t!”

“Why you—” As though powered by his invective, Budgie broke free and staggered towards the other man, his uneasy weave the only thing that kept him from careening into Daphne. Seeing his opportunity, Fitz said a hasty prayer before leaping into the circle to grab Budgie by his collar. The taller man stopped to bat around his head, fortunately too drunk to create any danger of connecting. “Leggo! Get off!”

Fitz only clung tighter, wishing that the crowd around him contained more rugby players and fewer intellectuals. “Come on, Budgie, your wife wants to leave. There’s a cab downstairs.”

“By Jove, is there?” The victim looked gratified. “Thank God, I’ve been trying to get him in one for the last hour. Budgie, old man, you don’t want Iris to be unhappy.”

“Of course not,” Daphne chimed in, “Budgie, she’s miserable here, doesn’t feel well at all, you simply must take her home.”

The fight left Budgie so quickly that Fitz nearly fell over, dragged by his suddenly dead weight. “Iris?”

Grabbing Budgie’s flaccid hand, Fitz pulled the other man’s arm over his shoulder and bent his knees to better bear the weight. The stairs were going to be a nightmare. Maybe he should just shove Budgie down; everyone knew lit people often survived falls that would kill a sober person. Before he could do more than groan, though, Daphne dragged a giant bear of a man over and said, “this is Sergei. He’ll take Budgie down.”

Fitz eyed the man—clearly the tame Bolshie Daphne had mentioned earlier—with not a small sense of gratitude. “I’ve got to pay the cab driver, though, so I’ll go down with you.”

Sergei nodded, flung Budgie over his shoulder as though he were a sack of flour, and motioned Fitz to follow him. The partygoers split gleefully before the procession, clapping and whooping as Budgie, his head bobbing up and down with every step Sergei took, left the field of battle in shame.

They met Jemma and Iris about halfway down the fourth flight of stairs, allowing him to offer Iris his somewhat strong arm to steady her uncertain steps. Jemma thanked him silently. “See, Mrs. Evans? I told you Fitz would bring your husband. I’ve never known him not to do something he said he would.”

Except tell her about Whitehall stealing all her work—though, technically, she didn’t know about that either. Guiltily, Fitz offered a wavering smile. “It wasn’t difficult at all, Mrs. Evans. We only told him you wanted to leave and he came like a lamb.”

Iris laughed damply. “He does love me. He just doesn’t always remember how.” Then, lolling her head against Fitz’s shoulder, she put her hand over her mouth and hiccupped. “Don’t drink the turpentine. I think I’m going to be sick.”

“We won’t talk then,” Jemma said hastily.

They managed to make it down all five flights without anyone being sick or falling, and it was the work of a moment to sling the Evans into the back of the cab. After a brief wrangle to get their address, Fitz paid the obliging cabbie and took Jemma’s hand as they watched the car drive away. “And now we’ve got to go all the way back up the stairs again,” he groaned, “because we still haven’t managed to talk to Larry.”

“I rather think he must not be there,” she said thoughtfully, “or he would have been in the middle of the fight, don’t you think? Trying to stop it.”

“Though Iris did say he didn’t care about the right things. Maybe he doesn’t find it important to keep her from being embarrassed and Daphne’s show from being ruined.”

Jemma glared, the look in her eye boding no good for the absent Larry. “If he’s there and you and I had to deal with that nonsense, there will be no need to wait for British justice.”

“I’ll help you bury the body.”

“Bury the body?” she said, holding out her hand, “we’ll just dump him in the river. Haven’t you ever read Dickens?”

He laughed and followed her willingly, minding neither Mount Chelsea nor her disapproval of his education when her hand rested in his. Upon reaching the top of the last flight, he spoke as clearly as he could without panting. “I think we ought to just ask where he is, don’t you? Let’s not beat around the bush any longer.”

“Agreed.” She reached up to settle his tie, which had been apparently knocked askew by Budgie. “Suck whatever information we can from him and leave. Daphne will speak with us whenever we like, I’d wager, so she’s not essential. And then let’s go home and be done with everyone by the name Osbourne.” She sighed, shimmying her shoulders before returning to her usual perfect posture. “Back to the lion’s den.”

In the time they had been gone, the room had been set to rights again, only the fine layer of glass powder coating the floor left to bear witness to the brawl. Fortunately, Fitz spotted Daphne almost immediately and steered Jemma her direction—straight to the source seemed the best course of action. She spotted them, too, and abandoned the conversation she was in to meet them halfway. “Did you get Iris and Budgie off all right?”

“All serene,” Jemma said, “only I feel sorry for the cabbie. Fitz gave him a tip but it may not be enough to make up for his trouble.”

“Lord, isn’t that the truth.” Daphne rolled her eyes. “So exciting, though! I’m sorry about Ann’s glasses but I’ll just buy her some new ones. Nothing else’s been damaged.”

“Perhaps that poor fellow’s nose,” Fitz said. “That was quite a lot of blood.”

“He’ll be fine.” Waving away their concern, Daphne began peering around the crowd. “Now, let’s see, who can I introduce you to? Of course you must meet Ann—I’m wild about her, I know you’ll just love her—and Boris, but—”

“Actually,” Jemma broke in, “we’d really love to finally meet your brother. He is here, isn’t he?”

Daphne laughed. “Oh dear, I forgot you wanted to meet Larry. Missed your chance there, I’m afraid—he’s left as well.”

Fitz’s stomach dropped to the ground floor of the house. “Gone!” Jemma all but wailed, and Daphne nodded.

“Once he stopped the bleeding a bit, he went right after you. Much the better, anyway; I’m fonder of him than anyone else in my family, but his presence does put a damper on the festivities.”

Before Fitz could decide which question to ask, Jemma took the decision out of his hands: “bleeding? Did he get involved in the row, or does he know first aid?”

Daphne’s respondent laugh went long and loud enough that people turned to look at them. Fitz thought back to the people at the edges of the circle around the two combatants: a good many women, a few simpering men, the ursine Sergei. Himself. Daphne. Budgie. And—Fitz buried his head in his hands as he mentally washed the blood from the second man’s face.

“Oh, _no_ ,” Jemma said, not managing not to wail this time.

Regaining enough control to subside into giggles, Daphne nodded gleefully. “Do you think Budgie picks fights with just anyone? He’s clever enough to keep it in the family. At least we can be fairly sure Larry won’t report him.”

Slipped through their fingers again, blast him to Hades! While they had been carting his family, his _mess_ down the stairs under threat of getting sick down his collar, Larry Osbourne had scrubbed his face and waltzed neatly away. Fitz’s temper rose like bile in his throat. Almost, he felt they ought to consider Jemma’s joking threat to do Larry in and dump his corpse in the river as a serious course of action. It might even be a pleasure. He looked up from his hands to Jemma, unable to think of anything to say.

Staring hollowly, she spoke without looking at either him or Daphne. “Miss Osbourne, I wonder, could you ring us a cab? I suddenly find myself unwell.”

Daphne was all sympathy, touching Jemma’s arm and worriedly resettling her shawls. “Poor dear, how sickening! You really oughtn’t drink vodka if you’re not used to it. I’ll ring someone up right away.”

As she scurried the direction of the hall, Jemma turned to Fitz wearily. “I wish I _had_ drunk some vodka.”

He merely nodded agreement.

“Will you do me a favor, Fitz?”

“Anything.”

“Let’s pretend this whole evening never happened?”

“It will be,” he said fervently, “my pleasure.”


	17. Subterfuge Is Hard To Do

Fitz didn’t sleep very well that night. Nightmares let him be, but his busy brain kept startling him sharply awake, leaving him to stare at the ceiling while his thoughts tumbled over each other like drops of mercury in a glass vial. A fitting metaphor, he thought the fourth time he awakened in as many hours, since everything seemed to pool back together regardless of his efforts to direct it elsewhere. Every gadget he thought of turned into a weapon; every composition he dreamed up transformed into a military march; every surprise for Jemma he imagined became the rolls of wallpaper he had promised in a fit of panic. Daphne’s show and its attendant drama served as a good distraction, but alone in the dark he couldn’t escape the truth any longer. The demonstration they had been caught in only served to remind him of the dangerous times they lived in and which he, Fitz, had a responsibility to help prevent. Regardless of what it might cost him in the meantime. These were homegrown Fascists, not even the real thing, and they were more than frightening enough. The papers and newsreels promised worse. Czechoslovakia with its mighty military was on the brink of collapse. If he didn’t do what Smith wanted, what might be the result for England? And, more selfishly, for him?

Rolling over, he poked his pillow into shape below his head and hungrily watched Jemma sleep. His eyes had adjusted enough to make out all her features, though he knew them by heart anyway: the slope of her forehead, smoother in sleep than ever in waking; the dark fan of her eyelashes; the perfect curve of her cheek sliding into the better angle of her jaw line; the freckles he loved more than the stars; the lips whose words and kisses would be enough to live on. Even without light, she was radiant. One finger timidly reached out to smooth her hair away from her face, catching by accident the silk of her skin. Shifting in her sleep, she tilted her face upwards, sighing something that sounded like his name.

It would be so easy to tell her. He could wake her with gentle kisses, wrap her in the blankets and then his arms to keep her warm, and whisper the whole story in her ear. He would swear her to secrecy, and no one would be any the wiser. She would be angry at first, he thought, but when he explained why he had done it—

Then, before his eyes, Jemma’s peaceful face turned from the softness of sleep to the cool marble of death. His rational side fell silent in the face of his fear, and he caught his breath to listen for hers as he put a hand over her heart. The reassuring _thump thud_ returned him to a semblance of his senses. Of course nothing could happen to her here and now—not even Smith could manage to harm a woman sleeping in her own bed in the middle of the night. But this was the only place Fitz could guarantee her safety. Out in the wide world, any number of things could happen, none of which would he consider beneath Smith with his smooth threats. She could have an accident in the lab. She could be knocked down in the street. She could eat a poisonous mushroom instead of an edible one. She could be kidnapped from a train or pushed in the Thames or coshed over the head in a staged robbery, and no one would know it had been anything other than a horrible accident. And the only way, the _only_ way to ensure none of those things happened was to hold his tongue and break his heart. _Damn_ Smith, he thought, a tear trickling from the corner of his eye, and damn Whitehall and MI and everything. He shouldn’t have to choose the degree to which he hurt his wife.

He slid one hand up the pillows to take the end of her hair between his thumb and forefinger and shut his eyes resolutely. And when, an hour later, he rolled over into grey light instead of inky blackness, he kissed her hair lightly and rolled out of bed, too exhausted to try sleeping anymore. If he couldn’t escape it, he may as well get on with it.

Letting himself into his office at MI a half-hour later, he scrubbed both eyes with the heels of his hands and sighed before heading to his desk. The single locked drawer contained his notes of Smith’s instructions for the device—or whatever one called these things. Spread out across his desk in the early morning light, the plans looked even more ridiculous than they had in the pitch-black of Jemma’s lab. Fitz sat down heavily, clasping his hands together behind his neck as he examined them. Clearly Smith had no understanding of mechanics at all, nor did he appear to comprehend the properties of gasses noble or ig–. If he did he could never suggest such a nonsensical project: hollow capsules full of gas, designed to break with a pinch of a person’s fingers and release one of Jemma’s antidotes _in case_ someone attempted to use chlorine gas in a semi-enclosed space. Even thinking about it made Fitz’s head spin with the sheer idiocy. If someone presented him this concept he wouldn’t be able to stop himself from laughing them out of the room. And yet, here he was in the office at six o’clock on a Saturday morning, about to spend a great deal of time calculating the optimal thickness for glass to break when it was meant to and not before. The only words he could think of to describe the situation would have caused his mother to wash his mouth out with soap.

After staring at the papers for another minute, growing exponentially more irritated the longer he looked, he pushed back from the desk and stalked to the sideboard after the only thing that would make him able to do this at all. For Jemma, he acknowledged as he set their wedding photo to smile down over his work, he would even deal with utter stupidity.

Fortunately, the work wove its usual magic spell over him. Somewhere in the middle of calculating the pressure per square inch exerted by the gas in the chamber, he stopped thinking about the project as an actuality and began enjoying the challenge it presented. None of the calculations were difficult, per se, but balancing the various components proved a nice little puzzle. Stopping only to move from his office to one of the capacious labs on the third floor, he worked until his stomach reminded him that breakfast had been a piece of bread with jam and tea from a thermos. The coins in his trouser pocket purchased a pasty from a shop down the street, and he bit into it as he opened the door to his office, unable to wait any longer. He rued the mouthful instantly. Before he could swallow, the phone on his desk rang high and shrill, as though it had been at it for a long time. His coat pooled on the floor by the door as he leapt for it, spraying crumbs and nearly choking before he managed to get out “H’lo?”

“Fitz! Where have you been?”

“Jemma.” He put the pie down on the desk and brushed himself off, unconsciously making himself more presentable. “Um, I’ve been in the office all morning. Since before you were awake.”

“Yes, that you left before I woke was quite obvious to me. Your presence in the office, however, was less so, since I’ve been calling every quarter hour of the last three with no response from you.”

“Three hours?” he repeated, shoving up his sleeve to realize he had forgotten his watch, “what time is it?”

“Two in the afternoon,” she said coolly.

“No, that’s not—”

His hand fell on his desk clock at the same time she spoke, the face confirming her words without an ounce of sympathy for his position. “It is, Fitz. You have been gone for eight hours without a word, when you said you would call. Naturally, you’ll forgive me for being a bit concerned.”

Sitting heavily on the edge of the desk, he pinched the bridge of his nose with his free hand. “No, yeah, of course. I’m sorry. I was down in one of the labs—there isn’t an outside phone, you know, just the inter-office system—and then I ran out for lunch. I lost track of the time. I should have called.”

“Yes, you should.”

“I am sorry,” he said again. “I know you can’t tell over the phone, but I really, really am.”

She sighed heavily. He could almost see her pushing her hair behind her ears. “I know you are.”

Deciding to stop by the patisserie on the way home to purchase a very large box of her favorite macaroons—not to make it pax, just as the opening salvo in his apology campaign—he nearly missed her next question. “You must have been concentrating rather hard to not even eat before now.”

“How’d you know I’m eating?”

“H’lo, this is Fitz, I’ve just crammed an enormous bite into my mouth,” she mocked in a bad imitation of his accent but a rather decent approximation of the muffled quality of a full mouth. Then, returning to her normal voice, she asked plaintively, “Are you sure you don’t want me to come down? For company, if I truly can’t help?”

Of course he wanted her to come down. He always preferred her company to anything else and expected he always would. The affirmative sprung to his lips automatically, only to die a tragic death before it made its way into the air. No matter what he wanted. For her own good, he had to deny both their wishes.

His silence apparently spoke volumes. When she spoke again, all softness had gone. “When will you be home?”

He looked at the work spread around him and thought of the experiments he abandoned in the lab. “Well…I can come now, if you need me. But I thought another couple of hours? I’d like to get as much done as I can before I have to shove it in between my other appointments.”

“If you must.” Must was a bit strong, and he started to object that it was no problem, really, when she continued like a solider on parade: “Actually, that’s convenient. Sylvia rang and asked me to spend the afternoon with her; if you’re going to be out, I’ll agree.”

“Sylvia?” he said. “I thought you and Mam were selecting wallpaper?”

“Plenty of time for that,” she said. “And anyway, Fitz, we both know you didn’t really mean it. Goodbye, darling. I’ll see you this evening, perhaps?”

Jemma put down the receiver in the middle of his confused “yes, this evening,” and sucked in a slow breath to calm herself. Or perhaps to comfort herself; she couldn’t quite tell which. Wrapping her hands around her neck, she closed her eyes for another slow inhale. Oh, she shouldn’t have let her temper get the better of her, only she had been so _worried_ , and then he continued to refuse to just _tell_ her what required his dedicated attention—of course he couldn’t say “it’s Whitehall” over the phone, but he could say _something_ , or he could let her come down and tell her then. Or, what stopped her from marching down there and demanding an explanation? He had never kept Whitehall’s secrets from her before and he jolly well had no reason to start now. Taking up the receiver, she scrabbled through the loose papers to find the number of the garage where Rosalind lived, intending to verify that Fitz hadn’t taken her this morning. Phone book, Lola, the Salvation Army offices, Sylvia—

Jemma paused with Sylvia’s number in her hand. Lord, what a filthy hypocrite she was. How could she demand to know Fitz’s secret when she refused to tell him her own? Never mind that her silence acted as a shield and his as a sword; she couldn’t require something of him she was unable to do as well. But she would tell him, in time, and when she did—well, things would be very different then.

She and Sylvia met as agreed in a half-hour’s time by the statue of Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens and struck out immediately for the lake. Jemma had brought the stale end of a bread loaf to feed the ducks, as was her custom when she came to the park. “It’s an apology,” she explained once they had reached the edge, “because I used to terrorize them as a girl.”

Sylvia accepted her half of the bread without seeming to notice it. “How?”

“Oh, collecting samples. I was forever taking algae and accidentally disturbing their nests or splashing too near while they were sleeping.”

“I used to do the same thing,” Sylvia said, “only it wasn’t ducks. I’m not sure what they were, even now—rather like a budgie, only much more brightly colored. And snakes and things, when I was after fungi. It was a marvelous place for a budding biologist, India. I was happy there.”

“I know,” Jemma said, tossing a chunk at a particularly majestic bird. “I saw a photograph of you there yesterday.”

“Where?” asked Sylvia, surprised out of her granite-faced stoicism.

“At the Osbournes’. Not only of you, of course; it’s a group shot with her family and yours. But Fitz and I recognized you right off.”

Sylvia tore off a bit of bread but didn’t toss it, rolling it between her fingers until it formed a pebble. “Mrs. Osbourne and my mother were fond of each other. Perhaps that’s why.”

“She’s fond of you too, I think. And she said Mr. Osbourne was as well.”

“Oh, really?” Sylvia’s mouth quirked up, dimple absent. “Only so far as I lived up to their expectations, it seems. I supposed one of us must always be dead to the other.” A bitter laugh burst from her, followed shortly by a sigh. She brought her hand to her eyes and spoke from behind it. “Forgive me, Jemma, I’m rather tired. I went out with Mark last night til quite late.”

“No matter,” Jemma murmured, staring at the lake to give Sylvia her privacy. She oughtn’t have said anything. Whatever the Osbournes felt about Sylvia, it could do her no good now; all her years of loneliness and hardship wouldn’t be blotted out by a sop of inheritance or a sentimental memento in a room no one saw. She had needed a little kindness, that was all, and they denied it her simply because of a disagreement. Jemma felt a sharp spike of anger in her gut. Why did no one value her friend as they ought? Not her parents, not her surrogate family, not her rat of a fiancé— Then the anger disappeared under a wave of alarm. “You went out with Mark,” she said, trying not to betray her sudden nerves. “I hope he took you someplace nice.”

Sylvia matched her gaze, blindly tearing the remainder of her bread to bits and balling it in her other hand. “You know where he took me.”

Horrified, Jemma spun on her heel to face her friend. Bread fell to the ground unheeded. “Why didn’t you tell me you were going back there? I would have come! I thought we agreed—”

“We agreed nothing,” Sylvia broke in firmly, “whatever you thought. I told you I didn’t want to come back.”

“And I told you I didn’t want you to go there alone! Sylvia, anything might have happened—”

“Nothing would have happened, and nothing did. I may as well be part of the furniture for all the attention any of them paid me—except, and _only,_ when they were asking me about you.”

“About me?” Coming on top of the emotions already coursing through her, this information took her breath away. She gaped inelegantly, unable to even form the “what” blaring like a klaxon in her head. “What were they asking about?” she managed finally, feeling as though she had missed something important.

Brushing the crumbs off her hands with a brisk nod, Sylvia turned to face her. “About your money: how much have you got, and where is it, and is it in your name or held jointly—”

“But what would you know about any of that?”

Sylvia threw her hands up. “As I told them! But they wouldn’t let up.”

“Who wouldn’t?”

“Charles, mostly.” The tight line of Sylvia’s mouth loosened infinitesimally, just enough to, in conjunction with her eyebrows, display grim amusement. “I wish you could have seen the glares sent my way—if looks could kill, your dire predictions would have come true. He sat with us nearly three-quarters of an hour interrogating me.”

“But why?” she asked again, still unable to grab hold of it. “Why would they want to know about it? It isn’t my money, really, anyway, it’s Fitz’s—”

Sylvia held up both hands like a bobby directing traffic. “Don’t tell me, for heaven’s sake. Charles finds meaning in the merest flicker of an eyebrow; I shudder to think what he’d find if I actually knew the answers.” As she lowered her hands, she canted her head thoughtfully. “I’m glad it’s Fitz’s money, though. That makes it more difficult for you to give them any without his knowledge, which I doubt they’d like.”

Taking a page from Fitz’s book, Jemma pinched the bridge of her nose. Actually, she found the action very relieving to the feelings, as though the pressure blocked off the peevishness she felt building there. “Sylvia, darling, Miss Weaver would rake you over the coals if you turned in an essay that answered the question as well as you’re answering mine. What does Charles want money _for_? His manifesto was frightening, but I don’t recall any call to concrete action. Do they live on charity or are they trying to buy land to build a holiday camp or what, precisely?”

She winced at the sound of her sarcasm, but Sylvia seemed unaffected by it. Still staring at the ground, she answered slowly. “Some of it’s to live on, I think. Mark certainly survives on handouts—from me, usually, but perhaps it’s like strike pay for union workers.”

“Indeed, strike pay,” Jemma agreed tartly, “as they come out from being productive, decent members of society. What’s the rest of it for?”

Sylvia pursed her lips and shook her head. “I don’t actually know that there is anything else. Any theories are unsupported by concrete evidence.”

Cursing the academic mindset for the only time in her life, Jemma tried another, more conciliatory tack. “I’m not asking you to tell me what you think there is, only why. You must have reasons to suspect something; I know you don’t draw conclusions without evidence.”

“Conclusion is too strong a word,” Sylvia argued back. “It’s . . . a suspicion. I wouldn’t even call it a hypothesis at present.”

If Sylvia sought refuge in the scientific method, Jemma would gladly meet her there. Watching a small boy in knee socks run up to the edge of the pond while his older sister followed at a more sedate pace, she began with the very first step: “What’s the question, then?”

Casting a glance at the children, Sylvia shut her mouth with a firm snap, took Jemma by the elbow, and began walking them very quickly in the opposite direction. Jemma had to double-step to keep up, holding on to her hat with one hand, and when they finally stopped under the low-hanging branches of a large tree, she had to gasp for breath. “Sylvia, for goodness’ sake—”

Sylvia met her eyes firmly, no hint of hesitation in her bronze gaze even though her fingers played ceaselessly over the clasp of her pocketbook. “The question is: what will they do with my three hundred pounds if I give it them? And the answer, I theorize, is: smuggle dangerous chemicals.”

Jemma slumped back against the trunk, her hands sandwiched behind her. This whole day, she thought with a mental whimper, had been one trip on the Waltzer after the other. She allowed herself one moment to get her feet under her before pushing off to meet it head-on, hoping she sounded rational and not at all like she’d prefer to pull her covers over her head and pretend she had never woken up. “Why do you think that?”

“About the money or about the smuggling?”

“Both.” Jemma waved a limp wristed-hand. “Smuggling, I suppose—it seems obvious they’d need capital to run a smuggling ring of any size.”

“Certainly, depending on where they’re trying to get. I imagine bribes aren’t bargain basement prices in Bolshevik Russia, for example.”

“Do you think it’s Russia, then?”

Sylvia lifted both hands. “It could be anything. Remember, it’s all theories at present. Mark doesn’t—well, he’s kept this away from me. But I happened to overhear Sansfoy last night—you know how he talks—”

“Ss, ss, ss,” Jemma said, nodding.

Sylvia nodded as well. “I couldn’t make out very many words. But I know I heard something about agents and sodium sulfite and sulfuric acid—”

“Oh, but,” Jemma said, a weight disappearing from her chest, “those aren’t particularly dangerous chemicals. It’s odd that he would be talking about them, of course, but—”

“What about toluene?”

The weight fell back twice as heavy as before. Toluene, a common methylbenzene, had a slight danger to humans when inhaled over a long period of time, but nothing to worry about. Toluene _treated_ , however—“Sylvia,” she said, fighting to keep her voice even, “did they mention anything else?”

“Not that I recall.”

“Not nitric acid? Oleum?”

Sylvia’s forehead furrowed as she answered slowly. “I don’t . . . remember. They may have, but I only caught words here and there. Jemma, you look like you’ve seen a shade. What is it?”

“Perhaps nothing,” Jemma said, feeling the rough ridges of bark pressing into her back without remembering falling back against the tree. “But treated toluene is the primary agent in TNT.”

Sylvia’s face went as white as Jemma’s felt. “TNT. Like bombs?”

“Exactly like.”

“God in heaven,” Sylvia breathed.

Jemma exhaled slowly, swallowing her fear and panic. They had no proof, as Sylvia herself had said; she couldn’t think why else someone would want toluene—as paint thinner? She thought you used it as paint thinner—but without the other necessary chemicals, it simply couldn’t be used for widespread harm. And why would they need to smuggle such chemicals, anyway? They were common enough in England; likely one could get them in Germany or Russia or wherever their ultimate destination proved to be. If it was, in fact, somewhere else? Smuggling, Sylvia said, but why?

When she posed the question, Sylvia tipped her head. Almost dazedly, she said, “I can’t—oh, Sansfoy said something about transport. Timetables? I was busy trying to remember the chemicals. It reminded me of trains, at least.” She blinked several times, coming back to herself with each sweep of her eyelashes. “It might not be smuggling. It might be anything.”

“We need more information.” If there really was something going on, they would have to tell the authorities. Details would be preferable, of course, but an underground club of revolutionaries who spoke of destroying the upper classes and appeared to be collecting potentially dangerous chemicals might be of interest to the police without specifics, particularly if her father could provide her with the name of the proper individual. Which he might. Distractedly, she asked, “What does Mark say?”

“Nothing.”

She blinked at Sylvia’s abrupt response. “Nothing?”

Digging in the hard-packed dirt with the toe of her shoe, Sylvia didn’t meet her eyes. “I haven’t asked him.”

Understandably so; schoolgirl crushes like Mark’s didn’t allow for betrayed confidences. But Sylvia could surely out-think him. “But have you tried doing it covertly? If you were to suggest that you might be willing to give him your inheritance if he would only tell you what he needed it for—”

“It wouldn’t make a difference.”

She laughed, a quick disbelieving burst. “Of course it would! It’s your money. Why should he be able to demand—”

“ _Jemma_.” Sylvia’s face was all desperation, and she reached out a hand to grip Jemma’s wrist. “Please, for my sake, stop expecting Mark to be like Fitz! I know he’s David and Solomon and King Arthur reborn, but other men aren’t like that, and it’s _cruel_ to remind me over and over!”

“Cruel!” Jemma froze, pressing her lips together to keep unconsidered words from flying out. They thronged to the tip of her tongue regardless: protestations of her innocence, denials of Fitz’s perfection, the stung conviction that men _ought_ to be like Fitz, the accusation that if Sylvia didn’t like the way Mark treated her perhaps she ought to _listen_ for once and wipe his dirt from her heels.

“Yes, cruel,” Sylvia repeated more forcefully, “until we became friends I thought I could bear it, I thought that my girlhood dreams of true partnership in marriage were nothing more than unrealistic fantasies, I thought that—oh, I don’t know! And then _you_ came along, as like to me as two peas, only lucky. Only you actually have what I wanted and can never have, never.”

Jemma watched in horror as tears spilt down Sylvia’s cheeks, escaping in a loud sob that startled the nearby ducks into a flapping frenzy. Her indignation followed the waterfowl. The fat drops rolling in rivers down her friend’s face forbade her to think of anyone else. Quite bad enough in the privacy of a darkened cab, tears were a thousand times worse in the middle of Hyde Park in bright daylight of a September afternoon. She could almost see Sylvia’s heart breaking in front of her. “Sylvia,” she said, twisting her hand to clasp her friend’s fingers, “what’s happened?”

Hiccoughing slightly, Sylvia shook her head, flinging tears all directions. “Nothing, of course. Only apparently I’m worth less to Mark than people who will get him thrown in jail or worse. Only apparently, the life we might have together is less desirable than a life of crime.” Pulling at the fingertips of her gloves in a futile attempt to remove them, Sylvia gave up the effort and ran the back of her hands over her cheeks. “And the worst thing of all is that he doesn’t even pay me the courtesy of explaining himself, he only changes the subject and tells me not to worry my pretty head about it—”

Jemma growled without realizing it.

Sylvia nodded fervently, laughing bitterly through the still-streaming tears. “How have I come to this? I used to look down my nose at girls who stayed with men who treated them like this. And now look at me: I’ve got myself in a mess and dragged you into it as well, and for nothing. I don’t think”—she took a shuddering breath—“I don’t think he’ll ever marry me.”

“No, dear, surely—”

“And now you’re just being kind.” Sylvia laughed again, less bitterly but more heartbreaking for the hopelessness behind it. “Have you got a handkerchief? I wept mine through last night. I thought coming out in public and without a handkerchief to boot might stem the tide, but apparently I can’t stop myself.”

Already digging through her handbag, Jemma came up with a dainty scrap and cursed her lack of foresight. “Only this. But let’s go to my house, I’ve heaps there and you can splash water on your face and Jean will make us some very sweet tea. It’s not medically explicable, but it does help one feel better when one’s been crying.”

Sylvia took the proffered cloth and applied it liberally. “I don’t—I can’t—please don’t be cross, Jemma, but I’m not certain I care to see your husband at present.”

“Of course I’m not cross,” she said. How could she be? Her friend had a broken heart that was, in some ways, Jemma’s fault; reminders of Jemma’s utter bliss couldn’t be anything but painful. Though it wasn’t, she thought with a pang, quite as blissful as Sylvia thought. Forcing her mouth into some semblance of a smile, she squeezed Sylvia’s fingers quickly. “You’re in luck, though—he’s at the office today for several more hours at least. He’s got a project I’m not invited to collaborate on.”

“A gift of some sort, no doubt.” Mopping her eyes a final time, Sylvia held out the soggy handkerchief.

“Perhaps,” she said as she accepted it, smile still firmly in place. Thankfully, Sylvia’s own, large heartache kept her from noticing Jemma’s small one.

As Jemma expected, Jean was more than happy to brew a pot of her panacea, setting it on the table in the drawing room with a cozy “I’ll leave you to your confab; I’ve got a committee meeting.” She touched Sylvia’s shoulder lightly as she passed her. “This too shall pass, pet. I’ve seen it time and again. But it’s all right to cry in the meantime.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Fitz,” Sylvia whispered.

With a last smile at Jemma, Jean went out and shut the door firmly behind her. Suddenly anxious, Jemma leaned forward to touch Sylvia’s knee. “Is my husband’s mother all right? I could have asked her to stay away, but I thought—”

“At this moment,” Sylvia said, “I will happily accept any mothers who want to offer me wisdom. I’m not exactly sure what one does in such a situation.”

“I suppose you’ll have to break it off.” Jemma picked up the milk pitcher, meaning to pour a bit in her tea and ending with rather more than a splash when she jerked as Sylvia said “no, of course not.”

“Of course not!” Jemma put down the pitcher a bit harder than she meant to. “Sylvia, what in heaven’s name—not break it off? You’re just going to continue being engaged to a man you know will never marry you?”

“Not _now,_ ” Sylvia clarified, sloshing a little of her own tea into the saucer. “Of course I’ll—I mean—” Gulping a bit, she stopped, shook her head, and started over. “I hadn’t really got that far yet. I must, I suppose, it’s only reasonable. But I can’t just now. Jemma”—she held up her available hand and waited until Jemma closed her mouth sharply—“if I end things now I’ll never be able to get him away from those people, and whatever is coming will ruin him too. He may not care for me, but I still care for him, and I don’t want him to go to prison or be killed.”

Having said her piece, Sylvia sat back in her chair and spread her hand in invitation, waiting for Jemma to rebut. Unfortunately, she hadn’t left Jemma very much purchase in the argument. Not wanting harm to come to a person one cared about was a perfectly reasonable position against which she couldn’t begin to mount an attack, and it was quite true that Mark, hardly giving Sylvia the time of day now, would refuse to listen to her should she end their engagement. Jemma rather doubted Sylvia’s certainty that she could manage to get him away from Charles at all—he appeared quite devoted to either the man or the manifesto, as far as they separated—but she had already argued herself blue in the face on that point, and saw no reason to expect Sylvia to change her mind. “So what then?” she asked instead, “you’re going to go back to the meetings and drag him out and let the rest of them blow themselves up? I hardly think that will work even as well as it sounds.”

“Actually,” Sylvia said, “I was hoping that you would come with me.”

The Waltzer took another lurch, and Jemma set her teacup back in its saucer with a decided _clink_. “What, _now_ you don’t mind me exposing myself and my husband to danger? How considerate.”

But her sarcasm was lost on Sylvia, who simply put her tea back onto the tray and perched at the edge of Fitz’s chair. “No, of course not. I wish I didn’t have to ask. Only you’re the chemist, so you’ll be able to understand what we’re hearing. And it could be dangerous, Jemma—not for me, not for Mark, but for the innocent people who will be affected if what we suspect is true. Don’t we have a duty to stop that if we can?”

Her earnestness set Jemma’s attitude in sharp relief. Taking a sip of tea to hide her face, Jemma felt heat in her cheeks that didn’t originate from the fire crackling merrily before them. Did they have a duty? As members of the human race, certainly; common decency demanded that they act to save lives as far as possible. But putting oneself in harm’s way for a potential threat? Putting others—innocent others, who didn’t know anything of the matter—in harm’s way because of a few harmless, half-heard words? And yet who might suffer if she did nothing? Fitz, she thought, and her heart gave a strange sideways thump. She couldn’t tell him this without explaining the rest, and she still wasn’t ready to tell him everything—not without knowing what to do. Not without knowing how to keep them all safe. And yet. Now she faced the decision, she didn’t know if she could really choose him over nameless, faceless masses. Much as she wanted to.

“Jemma?”

She looked up at Sylvia, whose eyes were ablaze—with hope? With zeal? With conviction? Who could say—and set her chin firmly, needing the posture to add strength to her words. “I can’t say I’ll go yet, Sylvia. I need time to think about it.” But she leaned forwards and took her friend’s clasped hands between hers, trying to offer as much kindness as she could. “In the meantime, I will give you what help I can. I do dabble in teaching chemistry, after all.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because all the RomComs are hitting tomorrow, I'm posting this week's chapter today. Surprise!
> 
> A big, flowery bunch of thanks is due to agent-85. I was moping and stressing and she provided exactly the right direction that brought not only this chapter, but several forthcoming ones, into focus. She is a box of expensive macaroons!


	18. Bar the Door (As Best You Can)

Jemma sat and stared into the fire for quite some time after Sylvia left, everything that they had talked about rolling through her mind like a boiling pot. Love was such a funny thing, she mused as the flames danced before her. One thought it was a soft feeling, but it carried with it so much hard work—a tyrannical master, but benevolent to some and biting to others. Her love for Fitz demanded nothing she wasn’t willing to give, not least because she knew that he would give and hazard all he had for her. Sylvia’s love for Mark, on the other hand, sucked her dry, requiring more than she _could_ give—not more than she was willing, but more than she could, because she never received it back. Iris and Budgie loved each other enough to shift around each other’s hard edges; Mrs. Osbourne had loved her husband by absorbing his though they pierced her to the bone. And then there were other sorts of love, too—the sort Iris felt for Daphne, the different sorts Jean felt for Fitz and for Jemma, the sort she and Sylvia felt for the people they imagined to be in danger. What did that kind of love demand?

Deep in her brown study, she didn’t hear the study door open, only lifting her chin from her knees when Fitz said, “Jemma?”

She blinked against the growing dark and searched towards his voice, her earlier frustration forgotten. It was good, she thought as unbidden tears prickled the back of her eyes, to be with him again. Everything seemed easier when they were together. “I’m here.”

He crept in on quiet feet, burdened down with something. When he got closer, she realized it was the evening papers and a pink parcel she recognized with no small delight. “Fitz,” she said, trying to keep her voice stern, “did you bring me macaroons to butter me up?”

“No,” he said, setting the box and the papers down on the tea table and putting his hands on his hips. “That suggests that I’m trying to talk you out of being cross with me, and you should be. I should have phoned like I said I would.”

“Yes, you should. That’s certainly true.” Without putting her feet on the floor, she stretched out a hand to him. He took it eagerly, smoothing his thumb across her knuckles as she pulled him in. “However,” she added, “let’s not pretend I’ve never done the same thing.”

He dared another step, his face assuming thoughtful confusion. “You couldn’t mean the time you left me to go up to Oxford in the middle of a freak snowstorm—”

“I did call!” she protested.

“Yes, after I had lost my mind with worry—”

“If you hadn’t insisted on ringing the railways to see if there had been an accident, I would have been able to get through!”

“I was worried,” he said again, taking her other hand with a tenderness their teasing didn’t warrant. “What if something had happened to you and I could have prevented it?”

His question tolled like a far-off bell in her heart. What if, indeed? Speaking more lightly than she felt, she used their hands to haul him closer, shifting her knees so her legs lay parallel to the seat cushion. “You are an extraordinary man, but even you can’t prevent a train crashing in a snowstorm.”

“I don’t know,” he said thoughtfully. “I think I could do anything if it meant you would be safe.”

The simple way he said it—full of conviction and determination, but also as if it was the most obvious thing in the world—filled her to bursting, and she dropped their clasped hands to reach up and pull his mouth to hers. He came eagerly, sinking to his knees as she caressed his face with both hands and his lips with her own. Under her fingers, the rasp of his stubble said _yours, yours_ ; the heat of his hands at her waist said _mine, mine_. She shivered with the heady sensation, and smiled, and gave herself entirely over to the pleasure of his kiss, relishing the way it wiped her anxious mind clean as a slate. After all, she thought, what mattered more than him?

When they drew to a close, she rested her forehead against his and grinned into his eyes. “Have you snuck one of my apology macaroons? You taste sweeter than normal.”

“I am offended,” he said, looking anything but. “Apology macaroons must be a perfect offering. I may have ordered one to eat on the way, just to keep my courage up, but that’s an entirely different thing.”

“Oh, of course.”

“Would you like one of your own now?”

“I think I prefer yours,” she said, making him flush adorably, “but yes, I would love one.”

He handed it to her on one of the napkins left from her tea with Sylvia, taking his own on his handkerchief, and pulled the cushion from his chair to settle on the floor by her feet. “So,” he said, resting his head back against her knees. “Two teacups. Sylvia stayed, then?”

“Came back,” she said, placing the napkin on her lap so she could run her fingers through his hair. “We went to the park.”

“Fed the ducks?”

“Always.”

He turned his head, just a bit, but enough for her to catch the edge of a fond grin. “You must have been a menace to those poor waterfowl, Simmons.”

“I was,” she said regretfully. “However, Sylvia said she did the same thing in India, only to parrots or something.”

“And look at you now: both brilliant scientists doing important work. The birds should be grateful for the opportunity.”

She hummed, mouth too full of macaroon to respond. Shoving a whole one into his mouth, he chewed quickly and sputtered a few crumbs when he spoke again. “Simmons, I was thinking—who feeds your rats on the weekends?”

With a quick burst of a laugh at the non-sequitur, she kissed the top of his head. “They have a block of food I put in their cages before I leave on Friday. Don’t tell me you’ve suddenly developed a fondness for my ratties.”

“No.” He shuddered. “No, certainly not. It was so quiet there today, I felt like the only living thing in the building, and I suddenly got very afraid that I was. What if there were a dozen rat corpses in the lab?”

“You’re only just now worrying about this? Fitz, it’s been months.”

“I don’t actually think about your rats very often,” he said, aggrieved. “Anyway, I thought of making them a dispenser that put out food at regular intervals, maybe with a clockwork mechanism.”

“They would love that.”

He snorted. “Rats haven’t got the capabilities for higher feelings, Simmons. Years of carrying disease bred it right out of them. And if they’re in no danger of dying on me, I’ll expend my genius on other, more pressing problems, thank you.”

Despite his apparent firmness, she fully expected he had pages of Rat Food Dispenser designs tucked away in his breast pocket; once an idea sprung to Fitz’s head, it wouldn’t leave until it had flowed out his fingers. Unless he hadn’t had time, she thought with a pang. Unless he had been so busy working on whatever this secret project was that he couldn’t spare a second for anything else? She could ask, of course. Perhaps now they were cozily ensconced in their own home, with no operator on the line or cabby with his large ears perked, he would feel free to tell her what he couldn’t before. But then he hadn’t wanted her to come down this afternoon, either, which would have been essentially the same situation. Did he not want her to know? Why would that be?

Before she could come to the end of the labyrinthine path through her anxious thoughts, he reached back to put a warm hand over her ankles. “That’s not to butter you up either, I swear. You can be as cross with me as you like and I’ll still bring you macaroons and make your beastly rodents clever devices, because you deserve them regardless of my idiotic mistakes.”

She placed one hand over his and left the other where it was, her little finger gently rubbing at the soft skin behind his ears. “I’m not cross, Fitz.”

“No?” He turned without letting her hand fall, so his shoulder butted against her knees and she saw his face in three-quarter. “You’re so quiet, though.”

“I’m only thinking.”

_About what_ , she expected him to say next. He usually did. He was, after all, the only person she had ever known to be invariably interested in what she thought. And when he did, she would tell him: _I’m thinking about keeping secrets, and why you’re doing it from me, and why I’m doing it from you._ But instead, something shuttered over his eyes, and he dropped his gaze to his lap where his fingers played a rapid, silent riff. “I am too. Too much, really, it’s getting a bit exhausting to be in my head. I feel like tiny mind-Fitz has played four matches of tennis in a row.”

The sides of her mouth pressed up mirthlessly. “I rather feel as though I’ve taken one too many turns on the Waltzer; I’m not exactly sure which end is up.”

“Is it the investigation?”

“Is it for you?”

“No,” he said with a sigh. “That is, yes, but only because it’s another responsibility on top of all the regular ones, which seem to be twice as heavy as normal. I’m used to never having a dull mental moment, but it’s usually things I enjoy thinking about.”

Without meaning to, Jemma groaned agreement. Fitz raised an amused eyebrow, but she didn’t take it back; groaning was the proper noise to make when weighed down by a heavy burden, and she felt like a camel or a mule or perhaps an elephant with everything she was carrying. Her work, the investigation, her worry about Fitz, the problems with Sylvia, everything piled on and on like a ton of heavy rocks. “I’m just so tired, Fitz. And it seems as though it won’t stop, doesn’t it? We can’t simply find a solution and walk away.”

“We could,” he said, turning his hand to clasp hers and resting them just above the jut of her anklebone. “The Osbournes, at least—Mrs. Osbourne would be glad if we did, actually.”

“No.” Her intensity surprised them both, but she barreled on regardless. “No, Fitz, not when we’ve made so much progress. If we find rotten Larry and he can’t help us, maybe then, but I hate to leave it unfinished, don’t you?” He nodded, and she squeezed his thumb with hers. “But let’s have a holiday as quick as we can. I know it’s a dreadful time to travel, but I miss Italy.”

“Italy,” he repeated, “or having nothing to do except be with me and be happy?”

“Ah. Yes, that.”

“Well.” Turning his face into her palm, he kissed the ball of her hand. “How’s this: we pretend it’s holiday right now. No work, no investigation, just you and me and macaroons and possibly tea. Does that sound agreeable?”

“Heavenly,” she said, and meant it. “And what, precisely, did you think we would do on this holiday?”

“I don’t know,” he said, his face screwing up, “the crosswords?”

Without meaning to, she laughed delightedly, bringing her hand to cover her wide grin. Crosswords! How sane, how relaxing, how perfect. God bless her husband and his genius. Matching her grin, he shoved to his feet and kissed her forehead before tossing the evening papers into her lap. “Race or cooperate?” he asked as he went to the desk after pencils and a rubber.

She craned her neck after him, not willing to let him go just yet. “Cooperate. It’s more fun when we work together.”

“You only say that because I beat you,” he said, pulling open a drawer and staring uncertainly into its depths.

“Middle drawer, dearest.” Shamefacedly, he closed the top drawer and pulled out the shallow one where they had kept writing utensils from time immemorial. She rolled her eyes and flounced back around, picking up the top paper and peeling it open somewhere in the middle. “And you only beat me because you have a better knowledge of the classics.”

“And now I know why Winchester forced us to read _Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres_ until we muttered it in our sleep—to beat our wives at crossword puzzles. And we did mutter it in our sleep. You can ask Aaron.” Rummaging noises came from behind her, followed by a quiet “blast _”_. Having examined every left-hand page for the puzzle to no avail, she turned back and began examining the right-hand ones. Ad., ad., society page, ad.,—

The headline grabbed her as if she had been caught around the neck with a boat hook, silencing everything else around it and her, demanding her undivided attention with such insistence that she jumped when Fitz touched her shoulder. Holding out the pencils and the rubber, his eyebrows drew together in concern. “You all right, Jemma? What are you reading?”

She held the paper out wordlessly, allowing him to read the headline for himself:

PREMIER PLANS NEUTRAL STATE FOR CZECHS GUARANTEED BY POWERS

He sat heavily in his cushion-less chair, one hand going up to rub at his hair. “Well, that’s new. I knew the Prime Minister was meeting with the Cabinet today, the papers said that this morning—”

“Did they?”

“Didn’t you read them?” He didn’t wait for an answer, which was probably for the best; she’d rather not explain that she had been too angry and worried about him to pay much attention to the headlines. “Got back yesterday from Germany, in very good spirits according to the _Times_ , though what there is good about this I don’t know…golly.” He rubbed his hand over his face. “Poor devils. I hope there aren’t any Jews still there, at least; they’ll have it worst of anyone.”

Jemma remembered her conversation with Aaron on their way to Golders Green: _he steamrolled over my people and now he’s moved on to the Czechs. What next?_ he had asked. “Why would Chamberlain think this will be enough?” she asked, voice high and slightly wild. “Austria wasn’t. Does Herr Hitler mean to carve German states out of every country in Europe?”

“Only the ones he doesn’t take over completely.” Fitz took the paper from her and skimmed it, mouth a grim line. “And it’s so inconsistent, too. Why shouldn’t the Czech government be allowed to maintain its integrity? And why isn’t Chamberlain supporting them? Goodness knows England’s always been more than happy to keep its vassal nations subdued by whatever means possible.”

“Always Scotland with you.” She tapped her shoe against his lightly, waiting until he met her eyes to smile gently so he knew she didn’t mean to diminish his patriotic indignation. “I don’t understand, Fitz. Can no one think more than a half-step ahead? I cannot fathom a way out of this that leads to peace.”

Standing, he balled the paper into a tight sphere and flung it into the fire. It caught instantly, going up in a crackle and roar of smoke and sparks. “But we have peace right now,” he said in explanation, burning away her questions with a gaze bluer than the flame. “We’re on holiday. We aren’t going to let that bother us now. Where’s the _Times_? Everyone knows they have the best puzzles.”

Pressing her lips together, she looked resolutely away from the fireball and back to the papers in her lap. “Here it is,” she said, flipping as if by magic to the correct page. “I think I’ve got the first clue.”

He returned to his position at her feet and took the paper into his lap, and she curled in the chair to be able to lean over his shoulder easily if she needed to count the puzzle squares. That was the only thing that was easy, though. The simple-to-solve clues left her too much time to think about what she had read, to consider the multiple dangers present for quite ordinary people who never asked for them. And how many of them, she wondered, even cared whether they were German or Czech? How many of them would suffer because one man decided to exert his will and another was too cowardly to try to stop him? But Chamberlain just meant to keep England safe and at peace. Was that enough of a reason to not do the right thing?

“Jemma.”

She roused herself enough to meet Fitz’s accusatory glance, offering a tired smile as an apology. “Sorry, Fitz, what?”

Tapping the paper with his pencil, he indicated a clue in French. “I can’t translate this to make any sense. You’re better at the language than I am.”

She rested her forearm against his shoulder, mouthing the words under her breath until the answer became clear. “It’s ‘Bovary’.”

He scribbled it in with a squawk, pencil flying over the paper as he ticked off that clue and another before darting back to the puzzle. “Then ‘king of Israel’ must be David.”

“Who else could it be, with five letters?”

“Might have been Herod,” he said, “or Yakim, maybe.”

“Did your mother let you do anything except read the Bible on Sundays?” she asked amusedly, leaning back in the seat and returning her hand to his hair.

“Not often.”

“For future reference, most people reading a clue about the king of Israel will assume David. Giant-killing tends to stick in people’s memories, and all those psalms every Sunday are hard to forget.”

“What about Solomon?” he asked with the end of the pencil in his mouth. “Wisest man who ever lived, so they say.”

Good lord, Jemma thought, how exactly did she speak about Fitz, that Sylvia would make such comparisons? Poet-warrior David, wise Solomon, and the mythical savior of Britain? “I must be absolutely besotted,” she muttered, more to herself than to him, but he heard her anyway and twisted to look at her curiously.

“With Solomon? That’s a strange sort of pash to have. He had heaps of money, of course, but—”

Rolling her eyes, she tugged gently at his hair. “No, fool, with you. Today Sylvia told me that you were David and Solomon and King Arthur wrapped into one. And she’s only met you the one time; she must be drawing conclusions based on my evidence, which appears to be heavily biased in your favor.”

To her surprise, the corner of his mouth twisted up painfully. “Not a very flattering set of comparisons, is it?”

“Why ever not?” she asked. “All three men—”

“Came to rather sticky ends, didn’t they, after getting themselves into a mess over a woman? All their accomplishments, _putt_ ”—he made a slicing motion with his hand—“because they went goopy over a girl.”

“What?” she gasped, hurt stiffening her limbs and stilling her fingers. Goopy over a girl—ruining their accomplishments—did Fitz think—

“Ach, no, Jemma—” Quick as a flash, Fitz put the puzzle, pencil, and all on the ground beside him, turning around to his knees and taking both her hands between one of his. “No. I didn’t mean that. Of course my accomplishments are ours, they’re only good, they’re only _possible_ because we work together, and loving you is—it’s—well, it’s the most important thing in my life, really. I’m dead gone over you and I don’t want to be anything else. Please don’t think I would.”

“It’s rather difficult to imagine another interpretation,” she said stiffly.

His other hand went to her cheek, levering her face up until she couldn’t help but meet his eyes. The blue was steady, solid; _I mean exactly this_ , he said, and she had to believe him. “It’s only,” he said, glancing somewhere over her shoulder before returning his gaze to hers. “I’ve been thinking, lately. I’ve been worrying. Because you’re more important to me than anything else, I worry sometimes that I’m going to do something wrong—maybe I’ll not do something I should, or I _will_ do something I shouldn’t, and other people will suffer because of it. If it was just me, I wouldn’t care, but it isn’t—erm, it doesn’t seem _right—_ ” He lifted his hand to the bridge of his nose, wincing. “I’m not saying it well. But do you understand? Just the two of us, that’s one thing, but we can’t—”

Since her hands were free, she put one finger over his still-moving lips to silence him. “I _do_ understand, Fitz. I promise.” And she did. Whatever this project was, he wasn’t telling her not because he didn’t want to, but because he was afraid of the unintended consequences. Why this project in particular and not the others, she didn’t know, but she trusted him enough to accept his decision. And, in doing so, received the answer to her own dilemma. “You mean,” she said, clarifying for her own peace of mind, “you don’t want England—or anywhere else—to fall because you put me first.”

His eyes lit up with relief, and his nod dislodged her fingers enough that he could verbally agree. “Yes, exactly. You’re my whole world, Jemma, but there’s another one I can’t forget about.”

In response, she surged forward and threw her arms around him, drawing his head to her chest and burying her face in his neck. Perhaps there was something to the EPR paradox, after all; how else could one explain how he had independently pondered and come to a conclusion about the very subject driving her mad? It was advice and permission all in one, a lessening of the burden without him even being conscious that she needed it. She pressed firm kisses to his neck, making him squirm even as his arms came up to tighten around her waist. “What’s that for?” he frowned, a little breathless, “you’d rather I choose the world over you? Where’s your feminine indignation?”

Rolling her head to rest in the cradle of his shoulder, she looked up at him as best she could. “Why would I be indignant because you can’t help being selfless? Fitz. Please don’t worry about this anymore. I know you’ll do the right thing at the right time.”

“How?” he asked, not meeting her eyes.

She slid her hand around to cup his cheek, pulling him back to her. “Because I know you, darling idiot. You’re the best man I know, bar none, and I have every confidence in the combination of your brain and your heart in tandem. If England falls, it won’t be your fault.”

_Yeah?_

_Yeah._

He dropped his head just enough to brush his lips against hers, then, apparently not finding it said enough, gently repositioned them so he could meet her mouth more fully, tucked between her knees with his hands resting on her hips and hers at their customary position on his cheeks. It was nearly the same position as before, but Jemma felt distinctly different—whether from relief or gratitude or the mere removal of any barrier between them, she found her hands were not content to remain chastely on his face and her mouth desired the sharp tang of his cologne-brushed skin more than the sweetness of leftover macaroons. Just as she was about to remind Fitz of another activity they had quite enjoyed while on their honeymoon, a shrill _briiiiing_ made them both start, knocking their heads together with a simultaneous “owww.”

“Rotten phones,” Fitz mumbled, rubbing at his forehead even as his mouth sought hers again. “All they ever do is interrupt one from more interesting things.”

Giggling, she put a hand on each of his shoulders as if to push him away. If she let him get one or two more kisses between rings, no one had to know. “Shouldn’t we at least see who it is?”

“They can leave a message.”

“How, Fitz?”

“We’ll invent a phonograph machine to record them,” he said, and she laughed again.

“That doesn’t do us much good right now, does it?”

Groaning, he pushed to his feet, using his firm hold at the small of her back to pull her up with him. “Fine, then, woman, if you think it’s so all-fire important, but don’t think for a minute I’ve forgotten our place.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.” She pecked the corner of his jaw as they made their way to the desk, where the telephone rested. “In fact, I’ll let you do the talking, so your natural Scottish grumpiness can ensure the conversation doesn’t continue longer than it absolutely must.”

“Excellent.” Snatching up the receiver with one hand, he pulled her flush against him with the other arm, taking the hem of her jumper between two fingers to rub it thoughtlessly. “H’lo? This is Mr. Fitz-Simmons.” She could hear a man’s voice at the other end, but not what he was saying; whoever it was, Fitz clearly knew and liked him enough to clear the irritation from his forehead and his voice. “No, it’s fine, we were just doing crosswords. Yes, dash it, only crosswords.” A pause. “Are you even allowed to use the phone today?”

The person on the other end laughed. Jemma knew the laugh where she didn’t know the voice and she went up on tiptoe to get closer to the receiver. “Is it Aaron?”

Fitz held the phone more between them. “Look, you can ask her yourself. She’s right here.”

“Hello, incomparable Mrs. Fitz-Simmons,” Aaron said. “My friend says you’re doing crosswords.”

“Yes,” she said brightly, “our last clue was about David. And I admit to being curious if you’re allowed to be on the phone, myself.”

“It’s after sundown—not the Sabbath anymore. And thank goodness, too, because I’ve been bursting at the seams to tell you some information I’ve uncovered about that little project we’re working on. Best not over the phone, though, so I thought I could come round?”

Fitz raised both eyebrows at Jemma, who pulled his wrist up to look at his watch. Showing him the face, she raised one of her own in response. Fitz canted the receiver closer to himself. “You can come for dinner, if you like—I don’t know that it will be anything you can eat, but you’re welcome.”

“Yes, that’s marvelous,” Aaron said excitedly, “my mother’s invited a girl around she hopes I’ll fall in love with. Well, our people are good at hoping for impossible things. May I come right now and tell her it’s urgent?”

Jemma laughed, and Fitz quirked half a smile. “Certainly,” Jemma called, “tell her I wouldn’t take no for an answer. Say my husband is cross with only me for company and I’m desperate for someone to help bear the burden.”

“Sadly I’ve already told my mother how perfectly happy you are together—she says _mazel tov_ , by the way, Fitz—so that won’t serve. But I’ll come up with something. Goodbye for now!”

Fitz hung up and looked at her dejectedly. “Sorry, sweet. Much as I’d rather, _you know_ —”

“It’s all right,” she said firmly, patting down his collar where she had mussed it, “you’re quite right. Anyway.” Her hands crept up to the sides of his neck, and she pulled his head down to whisper in his ear. “The sooner we solve the case the sooner we’ve one less thing keeping us from a proper holiday where no one knows how to reach us.”

“Have I ever mentioned,” he said, his eyes glazing over, “how brilliant I find you?”

“Once or twice!” She laughed, ducked her head against his shoulder, and kissed his cheek. “We’ve about forty minutes until Aaron arrives, I expect? I’d better go down and consult with Cook. What can’t he eat, exactly?”

“I’m not sure,” Fitz said, still slightly dazed, “only not a kid cooked in its mother’s milk. It’s all in Deuteronomy.”

Sighing, she set aside any hope of sneaking a bit of private time before their guest arrived and left him with one last brush of her lips to tide them both over.

Happily, Cook had a decent familiarity with kosher guidelines, having been a scullery maid for a wealthy Jewish family in her distant youth, and they sorted it out without a great deal of difficulty even considering the telescoped timeline. Skipping back up the stairs, Jemma allotted herself ten minutes to fully enjoy her husband’s charms before reverting to their company manners. Ten minutes, she knew from experience, could be plenty. But when she sat herself firmly across his lap and ran her arm around him, he only adjusted his grip absently and pushed a piece of paper her way. “Simmons, are you trying to build a bomb?”

She glanced down at the paper, eyes wide, and quickly cursed the fact that he could actually read her handwriting. Of course she had been trying to write neatly for Sylvia’s sake, but even so—“Of course not,” she said, voice much higher than it should be. “Why are you talking nonsense?”

Frowning at the list, he ran a finger over _toluene_. “These are all ingredients in TNT, except this one.” He jabbed at an item she had added as an afterthought. “But I think the Germans have a bomb that uses TNT with ammonium nitrate. It’s supposed to make the explosion more powerful because it—”

“—stabilizes the energy,” she said with him, and he nodded. She pressed her lips together, not sure whether to be pleased that she had guessed well or worried about what his practical knowledge might signify. “The Germans? How do you know?”

“Oh, er.” He rolled a pencil across the desk, caught it with one finger, and sent it rolling again. “I’m not actually supposed to say. I’m not actually supposed to know—the government really should stop trusting Tony Stark with their classified information. Unless he just guessed.”

“I wouldn’t put it past him.” But she breathed a bit more easily; Stark’s guesses weren’t certain facts. Maybe it had nothing to do with the Germans at all.

“So?”

She met his hesitant question in the small space between them. Waiting patiently, he didn’t demand an answer—he never did—but he expected one, a simple explanation for why he held an incriminating list of common chemicals used in bomb making. And of course she had one, she just couldn’t offer it. But neither could she lie. Nearly nose-to-nose, he would see through her right away—and she didn’t want to lie to him, if she could possibly help it. Speaking slowly but thinking quickly, she said, “Sylvia and I were talking about it.”

His face drew together in tolerant amusement. “You talk about the chemical properties of destructive weapons often over tea?”

“Well, we have to discuss something,” she snapped, grateful for the refuge banter provided, “since we can only talk about work so much, and men are a bit of a sensitive subject since Mark is such an ass—”

“Simmons!” he chided, now entirely amused.

She pouted at the correction, flipping the paper over with one hand while she teased the baby-soft hair at the back of Fitz’s neck with the other. “It’s the only accurate word, Fitz. He’s mulish in mindset and stupid as a donkey going round and round a pole. Naturally, you can imagine that Sylvia doesn’t care to hear me sing your praises.”

“Oh yes, because I am David and Solomon and King Arthur all in one.”

“No.” She dropped her cheek to rest against the top of his head. “I wouldn’t use quite those words. But you are the best of men and best of husbands, and Mark can never hope to be that.”

His hands drew together around her stomach, clasping her close to him. “I have to be. I won’t deserve you otherwise.”

Closing her eyes, she wrapped both arms around his neck and wondered again how she had been so lucky, when she knew very well luck didn’t exist. “And the very fact you think that, Fitz, is why you are infinitely superior to Mark and every other man alive.”

“I should take umbrage at that accusation of my gender.”

They both looked up sharply, Jemma almost falling off Fitz’s lap, to find Aaron smirking at them from the doorway. “But,” he continued, “you two are so saccharine-sweet I’m currently occupied deciding whether to be sick or commission an engraving titled _Conjugal Bliss_.”

Flushing a little as she imagined her mother’s acerbic commentary on the compromising position she had allowed herself to be seen in, she tapped Fitz to set her free and got to her feet to greet Aaron. Fitz slid his hand to keep hold of hers and made a face at his friend. “We’re entitled to do as we like in our own home. You might have knocked first.”

“I would have,” Aaron said, “but Lane was extremely insistent that I inform you that dinner is ready straight away. And as I am eager to eat whatever you Christians think passes for kosher, I did not say him nay.”

Thanks to Cook’s skill, Aaron found no cause for complaint with the food, tucking it away as though he didn’t expect to eat again for a week even while he listened intently to their account of the last four days. Jemma watched him, wide-eyed, but Fitz seemed to take it as a matter of course. “So,” he said, shoving the water pitcher towards Aaron, “we’re not exactly sure what there is for you to look into, at this point, with the jewels fake and the stocks already sold.”

Wiping his mouth, Aaron shrugged one shoulder. “I’m not surprised about the jewels, actually. No one has seen any loose emeralds in the last two months, nor have they heard about anyone trying to move an emerald necklace of that weight.”

“Move?” Jemma asked, “even a necklace worth that much wouldn’t weigh hardly anything.”

Aaron shot her the sort of look one gives a precocious child. “My sweet—well, my friend’s sweet—I just mean that none of the pawnbrokers have seen it either. It’s a bit odd, perhaps, that they haven’t taken it to anyone to ascertain if it was real, but proper criminals might know how to tell.”

“Or they might already know for another reason,” Fitz said with a glance towards her.

“And I already knew about the stocks. I’m a bit irked you stole that bit of information out from under me.”

“You did?”

“What do you mean you knew?”

More time with them apparently had not diminished Aaron’s delight in their cross-speak, because he looked between them and shook his head in gleeful disbelief before answering. “That was what I wanted to tell you. My uncle Benjamin’s friend Abrahams’s son Jacob assisted one Larry Osbourne in selling several thousand pounds’ worth of stock certificates at the beginning of July. He remembered it specifically because they were rising in value and he recommended waiting to sell until they hit the high-water mark, but Osbourne insisted.”

“How did he get the money?” Fitz asked.

“Transferred to an account,” Aaron said, “at least, as far as Jacob Abrahams could remember. But that was a bit ago and he’s handled quite a few stocks since then.”

Jemma landed a sharp rap on Fitz’s ankle, but he was already turning to her with a light in his eyes. “Simmons, didn’t Larry tell Budgie—”

“He did!” She jumped a little in her seat, facing Fitz more fully, as if Aaron wasn’t there at all. “So either he lied about having money—”

“—or he’s run through it all—”

“—or gave it to someone else?”

“Or, I suppose, just didn’t want to give any to Budgie.”

She rolled her eyes dramatically. “And who can blame him? I wouldn’t trust Budgie with half a crown.”

“What about for his sister’s sake?” Aaron put in, leaning forward into their tight knot. “She’s his pet, isn’t she, maybe as a favor to her he would—”

Jemma flapped an impatient hand. “Daphne’s Larry’s pet, not Iris. I’m not sure what Iris and Larry think of each other, but the family in general don’t think much of Budgie at all.”

“How could we find out where the money is now?” Fitz scooted his chair backwards, balancing on two legs until he noticed Jemma’s frown. “It had to go somewhere. Could we follow it through his accounts, or—”

“Depends on what it is,” Aaron said. “That much money, though, if it just disappeared, it would probably be a debt of honor of some sort.”

“Back to debts of honor again,” Jemma sighed.

“I could look into that, though. My cousins are bookkeepers.”

“Is there pie your family doesn’t have a finger in?” Fitz asked, throwing one hand in the air.

He shrugged, taking a long drink of water. “Pork pies.”

They stared at him a moment before all three burst out laughing, hiding their faces in their hands and behind napkins. It wasn’t even very funny, Jemma thought as she wiped a tear from her eye, only it had been such a long day, and they were so tightly wound, something had to spring loose eventually. She took Fitz’s hand and squeezed it to better share the joke. Aaron put his arm on the table and pillowed his head on it, his yarmulke nearly taking a tumble into his plate.

“Well, this is a pleasant sight.” Jean’s voice was warm, but exhausted. “Is there enough for me?”

Fitz and Aaron sprung to their feet, and Jemma smiled as invitingly as she could around her leftover laugh. “Of course. Come sit! We’re just trying to think of what our prime suspect might have done with the money from his parents’ stocks.”

“It probably disappeared,” Fitz said, sitting heavily after pouring his mother her own goblet of water and making a _poof_ motion with his fingertips. “I’m fairly confident everything he touches evaporates—except, of course—”

“That evaporated substances are merely transmuted in form and still exist.” Jemma sighed. “He is rather like the mythical white stag, isn’t he? Even appearing to hold all the answers.”

“I’ll do what I can,” Aaron said, “which is a good deal, of course, because I am the very best Doctor Watson you two Holmeses could ask for. But I can’t make Larry Osbourne appear from thin air.”

Jean pulled the platter towards her, dishing herself out some fish. “Larry Osbourne? How funny. I didn’t realize you knew him until this evening.”

“We don’t,” Jemma said, “never met him, and that’s the problem.”

“Wait, Mam.” Fitz flattened his palm on the table. His eyebrows flickered as he leaned forward. “Until this evening—just now?”

Jean shook her head, setting her fork down with her bite still on it. “No, earlier. He asked me before the meeting if I happened to be related to you.”

“What!”

The cry burst out from her and Fitz at the same moment, too startled to be a question. Colliding mid-air, their eyes held nothing but half-words and interrogative marks. Was it possible, Jemma thought dazedly, that they had been all the way out to Chelsea hunting Larry and the whole time he had been sitting placidly beside Jean on the board of a charity bazaar?

“Can’t be the same one,” Fitz said finally, not looking away from Jemma.

“You know more than one Larry Osbourne?” Aaron pointed out—quite reasonably, but he received a double-barreled glare regardless.

Jean continued without seeming to notice the poorly-mannered gawps before her. “Such a pity about his eye. Though I rather expect it will only help him in his work; all those rough boys think the better of you for holding your own in a fight. A curate who isn’t afraid to take a punch will be a hero, I think.”

A curate!

Thankfully, Aaron seemed to realize neither Fitz nor Jemma were capable of speech and valiantly stepped into the gap. “Pardon me awfully, Mrs. Fitz, I’m not familiar with all your traditions. But am I correct to think that a curate is something to do with the church?”

“Yes.” Jean nodded. “He’s an assistant minister, I believe, in one of the Anglican churches in the East End. Goodness, this fish is excellent, isn’t it? I must remember to tell Cook how much I enjoyed it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think I've seen FitzSimmons doing crosswords a couple places lately, but I can't quite remember who—regardless, it was perfect for this chapter, and I thank you for the idea.
> 
> So you know, that's a real headline! I was finally able to find some. This one is from the afternoon edition of the Daily Mail, which no one trusts anymore but I don't think had quite the same reputation then.


	19. If Wishes Were Horses

Despite her best efforts, Jean couldn’t remember for sure whether it was All Saints or All Souls that Larry Osbourne had attached himself to. Accordingly, Fitz and Jemma flipped a coin to determine which congregation would received their patronage for the morning service—Fitz flatly refused to attend two services in one morning, as that would necessitate rising when it was still dark—and which, if they weren’t successful at the first go, would be their destination for Evensong.

“All Saints,” Fitz said, consulting the coin on his wrist.

Jemma picked it up and flipped it in the air before shoving it in her cardigan’s pocket. “Excellent. That’s alphabetical. I do so like things to go in order.”

All Saints, however, proved to be a bust. “Clearly, it’s because gambling is forbidden by God,” Fitz grumbled as they filed out after the service.

“Tossing a coin isn’t gambling,” Jemma said, smiling at a wrinkled grandmother holding an extremely fat baby. “It’s casting lots. That happened in the Bible all the time.”

“Tell that to Reverend MacBride.”

Jemma tucked her cold hands more firmly in the crook of his elbow. “Anyway, your mother was quite sure it was one of the two. Larry isn’t here, so he’ll definitely be at All Souls tonight.”

And, in fact, they were barely settled in the pews for the Gloria when they caught sight of him leading the choir, a deep purple bruise around his eye confirming his identity once and for all. Jemma elbowed Fitz discreetly as they knelt for prayer. “Doesn’t the choir go out another way? How will we catch him?”

“It’s your tradition, not mine,” he said, eying the rector nervously. “Shh, Simmons. You’ll get us in trouble.”

“I’m hardly being louder than that crowd in the gallery.”

Fitz glanced up at the overhanging seats, which were packed like a tin of sardines with small boys in a variety of shabby garments. His mother’s prediction looked to prove true, then, as the rustling, hissing squirms and snorts coincided with all of the readings and none of the songs—even the _Magnificat_ and _Nunc Dimittis_ , which were sung in Latin. If that behavior was Larry’s doing, he deserved a good deal of respect. Fitz well remembered how hard it was to try to sit still all the way through service; that these boys managed even halfway spoke to a powerful desire to please somebody. Probably Larry, Fitz judged. The rector looked like a very kind man, but one who kept wooly bookmarks and boiled sweets in his pockets.

Jemma shot to her feet at the final Amen, clearly determined to corner Larry as soon as possible. Placing a hand on her wrist, he tugged her back to the seat. “Wait a mo’. Are you just going to lurk in the yard until he comes out?”

“I thought so.”

“We’ll go through the receiving line like decent people,” he said firmly, “and we’ll get him when he hasn’t got all those boys to talk to. They’ll be pulling at his dress—”

“Cassock!” she laughed.

“You know what I mean. Give it a minute.”

So they waited until the small congregation had filed away, then took their place in line to shake the rector’s warm, soft hand. “Ah,” he said, wise eyes bright, “you’re Mrs. Fitz’s children. She is such a staunch worker; I wish I had her in my congregation.”

“She’s Presbyterian through and through, I’m afraid,” Fitz said.

The rector shrugged. “It’s the same Christ, I suppose, and good works are good regardless. May I ask what brings you here?”

Jemma offered her most winning smile. “Actually, Rector, we were hoping to speak with your curate.”

“Larry? But of course. He’s seeing some of the children home, I think, but he should return shortly. May I offer you some sherry in the rectory while we await him?”

A hasty but silent discussion led to the acceptance of this very kind invitation—kind in spirit if not in spirits, since the rector’s sherry was the second worst alcoholic beverage Fitz had ever consumed. Jemma, politely setting her glass aside and appearing to forget all about it, drew the rector and his wife into an engrossing conversation about hygiene in the home—a topic near and dear to Mrs. Rector’s heart, apparently, and far from Fitz’s—as Fitz tried to keep his fidgeting unnoticeable and pondered the course of the interview to follow. They had agreed to avoid hard accusations, but that still left a great deal of give in the kinds of questions they would ask. And the answers they would receive? Who could say how honest they would be. They had already caught Larry Osbourne in one lie—extremely unbefitting a man of the cloth, Fitz thought—and, if what they suspected was true, should expect more. He would hardly just admit to bashing his parents over the head and stealing their family heirlooms. Likely the best they could hope for would be an incriminating lie, something that contradicted a known fact. That settled, Fitz checked his watch. Then he shook it, checked it again, checked it a third time against the chiming clock on the mantelpiece, and gave a quick cry of dismay.

The three in conversation paused to survey him with various degrees of concern. “Everything all right, Fitz?” Jemma asked lightly, her eyes saying _what are you on about_ with a bit more sternness.

Shoving to his feet, he offered an apologetic smile to Mr. and Mrs. Rector. “Sorry, yeah, my leg’s just gone pins and needles. The conversation’s been so fascinating I didn’t realize how long I was sitting in the same place.” Emphasizing the last few words, he caught Jemma’s attention and wiggled his eyebrows deliberately towards the clock. She obeyed with some confusion, only to stifle an exclamation of her own.

The rector followed her gaze and frowned, bushy grey eyebrows drawing together. “Is that really the time? I would have expected Larry back by now. Perhaps he’s come in and we didn’t know. Jane! Jane!”

“No, dear,” his wife said, “Jane was two maids ago. This one’s called Elsie.”

“Really?” The rector recoiled. “And I’ve been calling her Jane this whole time. Are you certain?”

Which of them was correct they were never to know, because Jane-or-Elsie appeared promptly and curtsied. “Yes, sir?”

“Er,” the rector said with a hesitant glance at his wife, “has Larry come in, my girl? I did ask you to have him come meet us as soon as he arrived?”

“He rung up, sir, but he hasn’t stopped here. He said that Mrs. Doolittle was about to be a mother again and that Dr. Turner wasn’t available, so he was riding his bike to fetch another one as the situation seemed rather urgent.” She twisted her hands in her apron. “I did tell him there were a lady and a gentleman to see him, but he said he knew who they were and never mind, babies don’t wait.”

“There was no one else to go?”

“He didn’t say, sir. I didn’t think it was my place to ask.”

“Quite right,” Mrs. Rector said, briskly but kindly. “You did just what you ought. Thank you, dear.”

The maid nodded and dropped another curtsey before backing out of the room. As soon as the door shut behind her, Mrs. Rector huffed an exasperated breath. “How wretched. I do apologize, Mrs. Fitz-Simmons; he’s usually much better mannered than that. I can’t imagine why he would behave so.”

“It’s all right,” Jemma said, standing and gathering together her things, “I can. But I’m afraid we really can’t wait any longer this evening to speak with him; we’ll have to come another time.”

The rector came to clasp her hands between his in a polite blessing. “Certainly. He’s often in the church in the early afternoons; perhaps you might catch him there tomorrow? And I shall speak to him very firmly about this.”

“Oh, no, Rector,” Fitz said, accepting a handshake of his own, “please don’t bother about it.”

Jemma nodded. “We aren’t put out at all.”

“We’ll just speak to him as soon as it’s mutually convenient.”

“If you’re sure,” the rector said skeptically.

They eventually managed to convince him and took their leave with effusive thanks for the hospitality, giving, Fitz thought, a very decent imitation of two people who didn’t care that their plans for the evening had been deliberately sabotaged. Jemma’s face once they got to the street, however, was eloquent. Throwing her a sidelong gaze as they walked to the main road to pick up a taxi, he sighed. “Go on, say it.”

“Say what?” she asked, her tone the falsely bright one that warned him he had made a grave mistake. Usually reserved for the lab, its appearance outside made him quiver in his boots.

“That you were right and we should have buttonholed him in the church yard.”

“Oh, that? Well, I must admit, that does seem like a better way to avoid allowing him to give us the slip again—not to mention, we wouldn’t have had to be polite about that awful sherry.”

“You were polite,” he said, “I’m sure my face gave it away.”

“Only to those who know you, dearest.” Then she sighed, her shoulders and superiority drooping. “Truthfully, Fitz, I’m not sure it would have made a difference. We could hardly say ‘why did you tell your sister’s husband you have no money when at least three months ago you had thousands of pounds and, merely for our information, did you kill your father?’ out there in the open like that.”

“In front of God and everyone, you might say.”

She sent him a sparkling eyeroll and he subsided, pleased with himself. “He would have had to agree to meet with us, and he might not have come to that meeting just as he didn’t come to this one. Particularly since he apparently recognizes us on sight. No, I think our only hope is to ambush him.”

“Agreed. But that raises a difficulty, doesn’t it?” She cocked her head at him curiously. “When, Simmons?” he asked. “Tomorrow begins another week and lord, I don’t even want to think about how full up my diary is. I think I even have a lunch meeting, more’s the pity.”

“And Tuesday’s my day at Oxford,” she mused, “so it can’t be then. Wednesday?”

Too long, he thought, but the alternative was tackling Larry Osbourne as he came out of a service, which seemed both uncouth and unlikely. “If Andrews hasn’t turned it into a solid brick of engagements already. But I won’t know until tomorrow.”

“Then we’ll confer tomorrow,” she said.

They walked a little further on in silence, busy with their own thoughts. What Jemma thought about as she swung their clasped hands between them, he couldn’t guess. He had travelled back to the office—more specifically, to the second drawer on the left-hand side of his desk, where the plans for Smith, along with the prototype, resided behind lock and key. He had hesitated about leaving it there, but if he was meant to keep it secret from Jemma he couldn’t take it home, and the safe had more than one person who knew the combination. It was a simple little thing, elegant, clean—absolutely mad, and entirely useless, but exactly what Smith had asked for and nothing more. He was glad to be done with it.    The first free space he had, he was going to get everyone out of the office so he could pass the glass capsules off and wash his hands of the whole thing—except the guilt, which he expected to remain indefinitely. When and how, he had no earthly idea.

“Penny for your thoughts?”

He came back to himself with a jolt. They had reached the main road without his awareness and he would have rammed headlong into a shuttered-up newsstand if Jemma hadn’t tugged his arm back at the right moment. Unfurling his hand, he took the pence she offered without thinking, not realizing until he put it in his pocket that he would then have to share his thoughts. Which he could not do. “Just thinking,” he said, “of…the office. And how much better it would be if everything we did was like the investigation, and we did it together, always.”

“It would.” The fervency in her voice surprised him; he had always thought she didn’t mind working independently, much as she enjoyed his company when he could provide it. It seemed to surprise her, too, because she quickly assumed a smile-slanted mirth that didn’t quite reach her eyes. “You could always make me a member of the board.”

“So you could tell me what to do at work as well as at home?”

“Fitz! I never—”

He relented immediately. “No, you don’t.” Taking advantage of a handy doorway, he reached out to wrap his arm around her shoulders and pulled her in to kiss her temple. “And even if you did, we agree on most everything and I’m too stubborn to let you run over me when we disagree.”

Heedless of the people rushing past them, she turned in his embrace, taking the lapels of his jacket in hand and frowning at them as she spoke. “And that’s as it should be, isn’t it? We must always do what we think is right. If we don’t, then we’ll be less than what we ought.”

“Of course,” he said, placing his hands over hers. “Simmons, you’ve got the wrinkle between your eyes. What’s brought this on?”

Stealing a hand back, she reached up to smooth out the crease. “Nothing, darling. I’m just a bit blue. Some cocoa will fix me right up, I think.”

“Cocoa is the solution to all manner of problems,” he agreed, and moved them back to the road in search of a car as she, changing subjects entirely, returned to Mrs. Rector’s discussion about hygiene. Listening with half his attention, Fitz couldn’t help but think the topic had been intentionally chosen. Certainly, Jemma had a habit of turning things over in her mind and returning to them without warning, but she knew he was far from the best person to discuss gangrene with. And then, she had called him _darling_. Other people dropped the word like two-for-a-penny nails, but between them it only meant one thing: _I don’t want to say what I really think_. It could be nothing. But then again, it could be something—and if it was, Fitz thought, it might be beyond cocoa’s power to solve.

 

* * *

 

 

Fitz watched Jemma all night, searching for clues about what might be bothering her and ending empty-handed. This was why they investigated together—he might be better at asking questions, but Jemma excelled at directing the flow of conversation to provide opportunity. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t find a way into the topic bent over the card table piecing together a puzzle with his mother and his wife, and in the privacy of their bedroom, Jemma had other things on her mind which sufficiently derailed any attempts he might have made. The closest he came was after they had switched out the light, when his hand smoothed gently over the curve of her back as her hair spilled over his shoulder. “Jemma.”

“Mm?” she said, sleepily.

“About earlier. Er, you know—um.” Heaving out a sigh, he started over. “Yesterday, you said you trusted me to do what’s right. You know, don’t you, it’s the same?”

She stilled against him for two slow breaths. Then, without looking at him, she slid her hand up his chest to rest against his cheek. Her thumb brushed softly over his bottom lip. “Thank you, sweetheart. That means a great deal to me.”

“So if you had something you wanted to say—”

Her hand dropped heavily from his face, weighty in its unconsciousness. And with that he had to be content. As always, she had already gone by the time he woke up, and the only chance he got to speak with her was over the phone during the three minutes one of his appointments kept him waiting.

“No tea,” he told her hastily, “I’ve got to go to Whitehall.”

“Just as well,” she said, sounding exhausted, “I’ve been sorely neglecting my own work; I could likely benefit from working straight through.”

“But you will stop and eat something?” he asked worriedly, twisting the phone cord around his finger and trying to decide if he could spare a minute to at least take her some tea. No, unfortunately, but perhaps he could send Andrews. “I don’t want you collapsing of starvation in the middle of your poisons.”

“I promise. Everything’s safely contained, anyway; I’m just going over my notes.”

A pang shot through him at the mention of her notes, last seen by him with Smith’s dirty hands all over them. Fortunately, a knock at the door kept him from saying anything more than “my appointment’s here, all the water in all the oceans. And at the poles.” before he had to hang up and go back to work.

Despite coming at the end of a very long day and including a dozen non-descript men Fitz had never met before, the Whitehall meeting proved painless. Tony Stark had, apparently, gone on some sort of spree and ended with an entirely new concept for the Project, bypassing his government to send a three hundred-word telegram over the classified connection directly to Whitehall—how, no one knew, but that was America’s headache. While Fitz understood their panic—equations didn’t translate well to morse code—he also knew they had no reason for alarm. They could easily incorporate many of Stark’s innovations into the work they were already doing, and the rest Fitz thought he could probably convince Stark were unnecessary. After talking them back from the cliff’s edge and providing an in-person account of his tour of the factories, he allowed himself a cup of very bad tea to wet his throat and some very dry biscuits to ruin the tea’s work. You would think public servants would be allotted better victuals, he thought as he watched the digestive crumble to bits with a mere half-second in his tea.

“Mr. Fitz-Simmons.”

Glancing up from his pathetic excuse for sustenance, he sought out the speaker halfway down the table. A civil servant of some distinction with only a touch of gray at his temples to speak to the stress of his job, Fitz’s liaison with Whitehall had sent a very nice chafing dish as a wedding gift and called Fitz “Mr. Fitz-Simmons” from the first time they met after the honeymoon. Fitz was inclined to like and respect him. “Yes, sir?”

“We understand you have been tasked with a second project for this office.”

A particularly sharp bit of biscuit lodged halfway down his throat, providing the perfect excuse for his incriminating behavior. Of course a man would cough and sputter if a hole was poked in his esophagus. The man next to him impassively shoved over a glass of water. Grabbing at it, Fitz gulped as much as he could and attempted a response. “I don’t—erm, pardon me—I’m not sure—”

“Good God, man, who do you think recommended you? Of course we know about it.”

“Ah.” Why all these men could know and he wasn’t allowed to tell Jemma, he could not fathom. “Well. Yes. It’s all completed now, though.”

The man leaned forward, tenting his fingers in front of him. “Actually, I’m afraid not. We’ve been asked by our colleague Smith to present you with a further project.”

“What?” Tea sloshed out over the cup as Fitz slammed his cup to the table, spreading in a milky stream towards the papers in front of him. One of the men casually slid them away. “What?” he said again, “no, no. I didn’t agree to that.”

“Agree?” Another man snorted. “Mr. Fitz-Simmons, the British Government is not a client you can refuse to service. The situation is dire. Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their country.”

“To begin,” Fitz said, “England is not my country.”

“Your wife is English,” his liaison pointed out reasonably, “and you live here, and you pay taxes here. If anything happened—anything at all—it would certainly affect you. Isn’t that enough to provide proper motivation?”

Choking off his first objection in the face of that quite reasonable counter, Fitz moved on to his second, more serious one, only sputtering slightly. “Well, but surely you have your own people. There are others who can do the work as well—well, almost as well—”

The entire table smirked as one man.

“Well enough for what Smith wants to do! This last project was ridiculous in concept and scope, and, frankly, a waste of my time and energy. Any child could have mocked it up and no one would know the difference, with all the practical application it has—”

“Ah.” Standing, the man at the far end of the table—who had been silent until now—reached under the table to retrieve a tight roll of blueprints. They passed, hand over hand, down the row of sphinxes, until the man who had given him the glass of water held them out to him expectantly. Fitz crossed his arms in front of him. Tea still covered the table; if he didn’t take them, they couldn’t foist them upon him. The first man waited a moment before clearing his throat. “You will find those plans contain the practical application. Smith requires you to make a device to give the capsule a wider range of effectiveness.”

Fitz scoffed. “They’re this big,” he said, spreading his thumb and index finger about an inch apart, “they have a dispersal range of two feet at best. There’s not a good deal you can do to make it more effective.”

“You misunderstand. Please, Mr. Fitz, sit down.”

“I believe,” he said, speaking through thin lips to keep his voice from quivering, “that I may stand or sit as I like. And it’s Fitz-Simmons.”

“As you wish.” And then, with a flick of his fingers, the man at the head of the table returned to his seat, interlocking his fingers over his substantial stomach. The man on Fitz’s left dropped his handkerchief over the tea puddle; the man to his right wiped up the residual wet streaks and laid the blueprints down in its place. As they unfurled it, each taking one end until it lay open on the table, the motion drew Fitz’s gaze inexorably down—it was a biological imperative, he could hardly help it. Even the half-glance he got over the slope of his nose was enough.

“It’s a weapon,” he said, not sure if it was a question or an accusation.

“No, no,” the rotund man said comfortably. “A device.”

“I am not sure what else you call”—Fitz jabbed his index finger into the middle of the schematics—“a thing designed to fire projectiles, if it’s not a weapon. Even one like this, which is even more idiotic than the capsules themselves.”

“Idiotic why?” his liaison asked.

“For more reasons than I could possibly enumerate.”

“Try.”

Fitz pinched the bridge of his nose, beseeching God to help him keep his temper within acceptable bounds. He could feel it roiling just under his skin and hear it in the dropped ends of his words; he just hoped he could get through without actually shouting. “First: the capsules as I’ve designed them will break in the barrel of the weapon—device,” he corrected, seeing several of the men begin to object. “They aren’t made to withstand that kind of force. Second: if they’re sturdy enough to withstand firing, they’ll essentially be bullets. If they hit anyone they’d penetrate and leave shards of glass in the body—maybe they’d be someplace non-threatening, maybe someplace vital. Third: you’d need a machine gun to shoot enough capsules to make any real difference—it’s two feet of effectiveness in _diameter_ , not in cubic feet. Fourth, and most importantly: if you can shoot a gun into an area that’s been gassed, why can’t you throw something bigger and more effective? Why, in the name of all things holy, do you have to use these twiddly little vials of antidote when I can think of ten better ways to go about this by m'self and prob'ly another ten if you’d le’ me tell m’wife abou’ i’?”

A solid, hollow thud punctuated the last words. Only after the shock reverberated up his arm did he realize that the sound originated from the impact of his fist against the table. So much for his good intentions.

More than one of the sphinxes looked vaguely alarmed, but the man at the end merely nodded. “So. We have every confidence in your ability to overcome these obstacles. Only we must insist that you stay as close to this concept as possible. No matter how idiotic it may seem, there is a reason for it. And that the project in its entirety remains confidential. I cannot emphasize this enough, Mr. Fitz. Mr. Fitz-Simmons, pardon me.”

So they valued his ability enough to entrust this project to him, but not enough to take his advice about it? They demanded he expend his time and energy on something entirely useless and lie to Jemma about it? The longer he stared at the plans, the more red-tinged his vision grew, until he almost expected the plans to curl up at the edges. They were only worth a pile of ashes, anyway. “No,” he said finally. “This project is a waste of my time—yours, too, but I expect nothing I say will convince you of that. Find someone else to do your dirty work.”

To his surprise, the man at the end of the table shrugged tolerantly. “Have it your way. You know your way out, I believe?”

Had that actually worked? “I do.”

“Back to whatever you do that isn’t a waste of time, then.”

Astonished, he glanced around the table to ensure he hadn’t imagined the dismissal. When no one made eye contact, he stooped to retrieve his attaché as quickly as possible. “Until next time Stark sets us all on our ears, then,” he said, speeding to the door.

“Of course—”

The voice drifted languidly across the room and pooled around his ankles like treacle, sticky-sweet and thick enough to swallow a man alive. Fitz’s fingers turned white where they gripped the doorknob. Forcing itself past the barricade of his gritted teeth, the question returned to the table as white-hot shot. “Of course what?”

“Of course,” the man with the plan, his newest enemy, said, “if you don’t do the work we’ll have to give it to someone else—all of it, sir, including Mrs. Fitz-Simmons’s formulas. If you don’t mind handing her work over in a lump for someone else to develop—”

_Every blasted time_ , he thought, clutching the knob to keep his feet from returning to the table to sweep plans and tea and all to the floor in a giant smash of crockery and blackmail. That’s what this was, wasn’t it? Whether they threatened Jemma’s safety or Jemma’s work made no difference; they were still leveraging his desire for her happiness against him, expecting—no, _confident_ —that he would do as they asked for her. And curse them all, they were right. He hadn’t yet found the thing he wouldn’t do for her, but this ridiculous project didn’t even begin to make the list. “Fine,” he ground out, still not turning around, “but I’m not taking those plans. I’ll come up with something better.”

“We thought you might. And as quickly as possible, please. We’re in a bit of a rush.”

“Wednesday early enough for you?” he asked acidly.

His bitterness went unheeded. “That will do if it must. And remember, mum’s the word.”

Unable to bear any more, Fitz wrenched open the door and stormed down the hall, only barely remembering to retrieve his hat and coat from the check on his way out of the building. His thoughts buzzed and blared as he strode down the street, too angry to think of getting a taxi, too preoccupied to hear anything beyond the vague roar of the city around him. He didn’t look up until the Houses of Parliament loomed above him and he realized he had headed entirely the wrong direction. Hailing a cab with a savage hand, he hurled himself into the backseat and glowered out the window until MI came into view.

The cab ride hadn’t settled his boiling blood at all, only given him enough time to realize his own stupidity in promising the weapon—it was a weapon, he wouldn’t call it anything else—by Wednesday. His diary for tomorrow boasted a few more white spaces, but certainly not enough to allow him to both create the gun and redesign its bullets. Not within normal working hours, at least. Groaning, he realized as he entered the lift what his stupid, fat mouth had got him into. There was nothing for it: he would have to stay after hours tonight. Yanking the gates of the lift shut, he pressed the button for Jemma’s floor and thunked his head against the iron grille. It hurt a good deal, but he deserved it.

As soon as he stepped from the lift, he could hear voices—not words, exactly, but intonation and shape. Jemma and another woman were discussing something urgently, their words crossing each other, almost like a quarrel but without heat. He could hear more as he moved closer to the door: _Germany_ and _explosive_ and _civilians_. _I still think it’s foolish_ , Jemma said, to which the other person replied, _but what choice is there?_

Fitz rapped their secret knock against the door as quickly as he could, unwilling to eavesdrop any more than he already had. The voices fell silent sharply, as if they had been a phonograph record that came to its end, and he thought he heard rustling and the _roll-slam_! of drawers being rapidly shut. Then brisk steps, then the rattle of the knob, then the door swung open and Jemma, dark circles under her eyes and a tight smile on her face, stood before him. “Oh, Fitz! Is it time to go already?”

“It’s after six,” he said, trying to peer over her head without looking like he was doing so.

Too clever for him by half, she stepped back enough to let him in. Across the room, Sylvia offered a close-lipped greeting. “We were distracted,” Jemma explained, twisting her fingers together.

“Experiments?”

“Noo.” Something dark crossed her face. A trick of the light? “We were talking about the political situation. It’s rather precarious, isn’t it? With the F.O.’s announcement—”

“What speech?” he asked, having had no time to lift his head from his desk all day.

In response, Sylvia held up a paper. “The English and French governments are united in telling the Czechs to boil their heads, essentially. They’ve recommended that the Czech government acquiesce to all Hitler’s demands regarding the Sudetenland.”

In two strides, Fitz was at the long counter and snatching the paper from Sylvia, the lines of print blurring before his eyes. Jemma came up and stood by his elbow, leaning towards him as though she wished she could put her head on his shoulder. He wouldn’t have minded, even with Sylvia in the room.

“Well,” she said, “it’s nothing we didn’t already guess, is it? Only it’s rather dreadful to see it in black-and-white. And with the French behind it, too.”

“A lot of cowards.” Sylvia’s mouth spread into a flat line, her hands busily turning a rubber end over end between her fingers. “I don’t know whether to hope the Czech government agrees and escapes alive, or disagrees and goes to war with their dignity. Either way, it’s a disaster and no mistake.”

Jemma made an agreeing noise as Fitz returned to the paper, his breath caught in his chest. Surely this explained the new urgency to Smith’s ridiculous project—why Whitehall wanted that, of all things, he couldn’t begin to fathom, but with the grim prospect of war on the Continent dancing before them and the still-fresh horrors of chemical warfare in their minds, he could certainly imagine them grasping at straws. The Project wouldn’t be ready for another year at least, except on a very small scale; defense was their only hope at this point. And perhaps, he thought as he stared unseeingly at the page before him, perhaps if he solved this problem for them, they would be willing to listen to better ideas. Coming to a decision, he threw the paper onto the counter. “Jemma, I’m sorry, but I’ve got some more work to do tonight. My meeting—”

For half a second he thought he saw something like relief cross her face—couldn’t be that, though, and whatever it was quickly disappeared in understanding. “How sickening. Still, needs must, I suppose.”

“You don’t mind?”

She did lean into him then, grabbing his hand behind the counter where Sylvia didn’t see to press their fingers together. “Of course I mind. But _you_ mustn’t; I understand. I’ll just scoop Sylvia up and take her home to dine with your mother. Perhaps we’ll see a show after. It will be the perfect thing to take our minds off everything.” She caught his gaze and held it significantly, repeating _everything_ with a quick dart towards her friend. He understood instantly.

“Yeah, of course you must,” he said, offering Sylvia a smile he hoped was kind without unnecessarily reminding her of her own wart of a fiancé. “I’d only be in the way.”

“A bit,” Jemma said with another squeeze of their hands. “Good luck, then, and I’ll see you later tonight.”

“Of course. Good to see you, Miss Forbes.”

She shook his offered hand firmly, transferring the rubber from her right to her left. “You as well, Mr. Fitz-Simmons. Thank you for lending me your wife.”

“It’s hardly lending,” he said, laughing a little, “she’s quite capable of ordering her own life. All the same, I’d like her back without any damage.”

The rubber dropped onto the counter, bouncing onto the floor. As he bent to pick it up, Sylvia chuckled, high and fast. “I shall make every effort.”

He handed back the rubber without further comment, wondering idly why she looked so much like a startled rabbit, and trailed her to the door where Jemma had already turned out the light. Just as they got there, though, she darted back into the inky blackness of the now-deserted lab. “I have to check on my ratties,” she said, “just a moment. They weren’t well earlier. That Snow White solution just gets more and more dangerous, Sylvia.”

“You’ll end by gassing them all,” Sylvia said.

The cages rattled and squeaked a moment, then grew quiet as Jemma made her way back. “Much as it pains me to say it, better them than any human. We’ve had more than enough accidental deaths in this company as it is.” Sneaking her hand into the crook of his elbow, she tapped her index finger lightly against his arm. He bumped her shoulder in return before she moved away. “And in the meantime,” she said more lightly as they made their way down the hall, “we haven’t had to kiss any of them, and the puff of smoke hasn’t turned into a skull. So I’m not an evil queen yet.”

“Never at all,” he said loyally, handing her and then Sylvia into the lift before entering himself and pulling the grille to. “May I see you to the foyer?”

“Actually, can we go to my lab first?” Sylvia looked apologetic. “Only I’ll have to get my things.”

“Oh, of course. What floor? Three?”

She nodded and he pushed the button, bracing himself with one hand against the wall as the lift jerked to a start. Despite their ease of conversation other places, they remained silent the entire journey—something about lifts, Fitz thought, that made talking seem odd. When they reached the third floor, he pulled back the gates for Sylvia and let her out. “I won’t be a moment,” she said over her shoulder.

Jemma waved a hand to signify she should take as long as she liked, waiting until they heard the distinct _snick_ of the latch engaging behind her before turning to him and hooking a finger through one of his buttonholes. “What did they need?”

_They_ , of course, referring to Whitehall—he should have known she wouldn’t be content so easily. Thanking his lucky stars that he actually could tell her most of the truth, he shrugged. “Stark sent them in a tizzy again. Nothing I couldn’t manage.”

“Of course it wasn’t,” she said loyally, but with a bit of a laugh in her eyes. “But it’s something urgent. Can I help you at all? After dinner, I could come back and—”

“No.” He cut her off, unable for his own peace of mind to allow her to fill his head with the image of something that could never happen. He would like nothing better than to spread the plans over his desk and hand her a pencil, the two of them and a thermos of cocoa and the soft orange island of light from the desk lamp, but he _couldn’t_. Rubbing his hands over his face, he landed them on her shoulders and cupped his fingers around the back of her neck, trying to soothe the sting of the brusque answer. “ ’m sorry, it’s been a long day and I’m dead on my feet. There’s nothing you could do, especially, and you’ve got an early day tomorrow. There’s no reason for both of us to be exhausted.”

Uncurling her finger, she brought her hands up to pull his down. The tight smile returned as she stepped back towards the opposite wall. “If you’re sure.”

His hands hovered in the empty space, wanting to reach out but suddenly unsure if it would be welcome. This _blasted_ project, throwing up a gulf between them. “I wish you could,” he offered, knowing it wasn’t enough.

But she slumped against the wall and reached out as well, tangling their fingers in the space between. “Only I’m rather tired of not working with you, Fitz.”

So was he. And not telling her the truth, and not being able to do his best work because she wasn’t there to push him, and of being manipulated into actions that sat uneasy in his conscience, and of the guilt that twined round his stomach whenever he remembered what he had done. Not that he could tell her any of that. Instead, he pulled her hand to his mouth and kissed its rose-petal back, pressing a promise into her skin: _just a little longer_. If it felt like a wish more than a vow, he simply refused to acknowledge that fact.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As you may have guessed, the Sudetenland crisis is upon us, and will be referenced fairly regularly throughout the remainder of the story. I have done my very best to ensure that the historical events are depicted accurately, but all my research hasn't turned up a way to know when, exactly, the general public became aware of the political maneuverings. I've seen a few newspapers that suggest they were kept pretty up to date, so I've taken that as a benchmark and used my best judgment from there. Please forgive any lapses.
> 
> Also, ha ha! did you think I was going to give you Larry already? Please. The whole course of this story has been promising something and keeping it back. :)


	20. Den of Vipers

It didn’t count as a lie, Jemma told herself firmly all the way home. She and Sylvia _had_ been talking about the Czech situation; they _were_ going home to dine with Fitz’s mother; they _might_ go see a play this evening. Neglecting to tell Fitz that they intended to infiltrate Charles’s inner circle and possibly uncover a smuggling ring only kept him from being unnecessarily worried. Or, at least, worried. Whether or not it was unnecessary remained to be seen. It all depended on how convincing she and Sylvia managed to be tonight.

“For heaven’s sake,” Sylvia said, her usually even tone slightly jagged, “you’ll just wear what you normally do. It isn’t the French Revolution.”

“I don’t want to stand out,” Jemma protested. “Charles has to believe that I might be coming round to his way of thinking. Surely that requires a certain economy of dress.”

“So you’ll run out to the shops and buy something distinctly shabby?”

Stung by Sylvia’s sarcasm, Jemma refocused her attention on the road ahead. “Well, it certainly appears Charles did.”

“No, I rather think he carefully cultivated that.” Sighing, Sylvia smoothed out her skirt only to start pleating it the opposite direction. “Really, Jemma, we aren’t going to be saying much unless someone asks, and I doubt they will. They aren’t interested in Mark or in me. You might be a novelty, but you’re also a newcomer, and they won’t trust you.”

“I only want to be prepared.”

Sylvia stared unseeingly at the wide, wild sprawl of the Thames as they rushed along its edge. “I rather think there’s nothing that can quite prepare one for this sort of thing. It’s too far from the edge of reasonable experiences to allow one to plan for what might happen.”

Perhaps Sylvia made a fair point, but Jemma couldn’t help but allow her mind to tease out every possibility she could imagine. Far from confident in her ability to react well under pressure, she wanted to have a plan in place for every eventuality. This project occupied her well through the admittedly excellent dinner, leaving Sylvia and Jean to carry the conversation, and most of the way out to Golders Green, where Mark met them at the station with the air of a rat who had just snagged a particularly large bit of food from under his compatriot’s whiskers. Jemma accepted his offered arm, inwardly cringing but—she hoped—smiling gratefully.

“We’re so pleased you’ve come again, Mrs. Fitz-Simmons,” he said as they made their way through the dark streets. “We can always use members like yourself.”

“Oh,” she said, pitching her voice about four notes higher than she was used to, “are there members? Like a club or society?”

Around Mark’s arm, Sylvia gave her an alarmed look, but he didn’t appear to notice anything odd. His chest puffed out like a pigeon as he answered. “Not like that—no, not quite like that. It’s more like a brotherhood, really.”

“I understand that is a tenant of socialism,” she simpered, privately wondering if that extended to Charles as well. Surely no one believed the Soviet propaganda so completely. But then, she reminded herself, these people may not have anything to do with the Soviets. She mustn’t jump to conclusions. Neither should she suggest an alliance with any particular social system, not without more information. “Although, I can’t say I’m convinced it always works as it’s meant to. There’s so much potential for oppression, isn’t there?”

Mark’s eyebrows beetled together. “And what we have now is so much better? With no opportunity for the people at the bottom to get anything? At least it’s fair this way. If you want anything in life you have to take it for yourself.”

Jemma found herself grateful for the dark as her face hardened into the smile Fitz had named _goodness, aren’t you a fool_? “Oh, really?” she said, “I always thought if you wanted something you had to work hard to earn it.”

“And some people work hard their whole lives,” Mark snapped back, “and never get what they deserve. Not that you know anything about that, Mrs. Fitz-Simmons, with your knighted father and your suddenly wealthy husband!”

The shift from genial to combative left her speechless for a single second, after which she took another few to marshal her thoughts. They thronged to her tongue in a flood, so quickly she wasn’t sure where to begin: that her father had worked for his title? That Fitz earned every mite of his success, even without slaving under Macpherson? That, as an educated woman who didn’t wish to be a teacher, she certainly did know about not getting what one deserved despite one’s hard work? But before she could flay Mark alive, Sylvia suddenly stumbled enough to pull all three of them forwards. Mark yanked her up with bad grace. “For God’s sake, Sylvia.”

She ducked her head, not meeting his accusatory glare. “Sorry, I got tangled in my own laces. I was thinking about what Mrs. Fitz was telling us at dinner, about the poor people she’s collecting things for. Women whose husbands have died; families where the father can’t make enough money to feed his children, old people turned out of their positions…” From under the brim of her hat, she caught and held Jemma’s gaze. _Please don’t_ , she mouthed, and Jemma understood. Taking Mark to task would hardly engender the goodwill they needed to carry out their mission. Reminding herself of the greater good at stake, she mimed locking her lips and throwing away the key. With a tiny sigh of relief, Sylvia finished her idea. “One does wish there was something more to be done for them.”

One did, Jemma thought with a pang. What was that old bromide: give a man a fish, something, feed him for life? No matter how well Jean’s charity bazaar went, it would only be a plaster on the problem. “Quite so. I was speaking with a rector and his wife who work in the East End, and—”

Mark sputtered a rude word. “We don’t mean _those_ people. They’re only the ignorant unwashed masses; what can they offer anybody? They get exactly what they deserve.”

Jemma and Sylvia exchanged a startled glance. Who then, exactly, did Mark think worked without receiving the deserved reward?

“No,” he said, returning to his pompous invisible rostrum, “maybe someday they can join us, but in the meantime there are plenty of more worthy people who deserve better and don’t get it.”

People, Jemma realized with a sudden roaring in her ears, like Mark. People who had every opportunity and blessing one could have and yet felt as though they suffered unfairly. She almost flung his arm away from her, disgusted to her very marrow. Hadn’t he been educated at good schools? Didn’t he have a decent brain and a healthy body? Didn’t he have Sylvia who loved him and sacrificed for him, even though he really deserved to be the cocoanut matting under her feet? What more did he think he ought to have coming to him? She wanted to be sick. From Sylvia’s pale features, she wished she could do the same.

“It’s the oppression of the upper classes,” Mark continued, heedless of the effect his words had on his companions. “They want to keep all the power in their own hands—afraid of letting anyone in who doesn’t meet their archaic standards of merit—”

He droned ad nauseam the rest of the way, explaining in language at once horrifying and pedestrian his understanding of the balances of power with a heavy emphasis on how the mystical They conspired to keep the Deserving Hero from his Due. Jemma used the opportunity to attempt a better understanding of the area. If Mark needed to hastily rid himself of their presence again, she’d rather find her own way home rather than trust to the dubious kindness of Sansfoy or any of the rest of his ilk. Cataloguing greengrocers and newspaper stands, making note of the turns from the large brick building marked Synagogue, counting the number of taxis she saw on the streets, she felt fairly confident in her capabilities by the time they came to a stop in the shadow of the alley. Mark held up a hand. “Wait here,” he directed, and darted off into the dark.

Sylvia drew close. “That was _horrible_. But I didn’t hear anything about the perfume, did you?”

It took Jemma a moment to stop repeating _left-left-right-left_ in her head long enough to decode Sylvia’s question. The perfume—potential chemicals, according to the code they had decided on in her lab. “No,” she said a bit guiltily, “nor the lipsticks, either. But I rather stopped paying attention there—it was that or be sick.” Pressing Sylvia’s hand quickly, she offered an apologetic half-smile. “It must have been even more rotten for you.”

“I had no idea.” Sylvia stared after the now invisible Mark. “All those years, Jemma, and I never would have imagined he had all that inside him. His father’s a magistrate, you know?” Jemma murmured her denial. “He is,” Sylvia said, “and his brother’s an officer in the Navy and his sister is married to one of the fashionable doctors in Harley Street. His own family are the people he believes hate him.”

“Do they?”

“No. They dote on him. They’ve given him far more than he needs.” She snorted. “More than he deserves, certainly. Why is he so unhappy, Jemma?”

“I don’t know.”

Sylvia shuddered, wrapping her arms around her. “Do you know, despite everything, I do still want him to be happy. Perhaps if we find out he is a cosmetic salesman, but even then—”

She broke off as Mark’s white shirtfront gleamed in the darkness, growing larger the closer he drew. About six feet away he stopped to wave them forward, looking over their shoulders into the street as they moved toward him and placing a firm hand on each of their backs to hurry them along. Jemma shied away. “This looks different from the last alley,” she remarked, speaking casually but directing the observation towards Mark on the pointed end of a needle. _I’m not as foolish as all that_.

He deigned to answer her beyond a black glare as he came to a stop before yet another dark door. Kicking it twice, he said “Tod dem Fuhrer,” which made Jemma’s eyes go wide, and waited for the enormous man on the other side to open up for them. To Jemma’s surprise, they walked directly into the cavernous basement in which she had attended the last of these little soirees. Just to be sure, she looked over her shoulder, then to each corner in search of the stairs. Mark watched her with a smug curl of his lip, made ridiculous by the scrawny fuzz of his mustache. “You think we only have one way in and out of our hidey-hole? Rest assured, Mrs. Fitz-Simmons, we plan for every eventuality.”

“Oh, of course,” she replied automatically, adding a titter just to be safe. “I expect nothing less.”

Mark found them a table and retrieved the burning beverage again, which Jemma covertly spilled onto the stone floor. She needed her mind sharp for the work. One never knew which of the people brushing up against the table, talking in hushed tones as they rustled papers, casting suspicious glances at she and Sylvia, would be the one to provide them the information they needed.

When they had sat in silence for three-quarters of an hour, Sylvia leaned closer to Mark. “There seem to be more people here tonight.”

“Of course there are. Everybody reads the papers.”

Jemma bristled on Sylvia’s behalf, but her friend merely demurred. “I didn’t realize you had an interest in Czechoslovakia.”

“Everyone of sense has an interest,” Mark pontificated, “and anyway, last time you were here half of us were at the rally in Chelsea.”

Jemma’s interest stood at attention: that would have been Friday night, the night she and Fitz got caught in the Fascist rally on their way to Daphne’s show. But would people who had a password that meant “death to the leader” ally themselves with people who espoused Herr Hitler’s doctrines? Unless it was only the man they disliked. Understandable, of course, but—Jemma pulled her mind back to the conversation in front of her, having to concentrate to hear more than hissing whispers.

“No, not everybody has a right to speak. Some people are ignorant or evil and they should be made to be quiet in whatever way is necessary.”

“If they’re so ignorant or evil,” Sylvia said, “it can’t do any harm for them to speak, because intelligent and good people won’t listen to them.”

Mark smiled benignly. “Darling, you’ve such an innocent understanding of humanity. There aren’t enough intelligent or good people to outweigh all the stupid ones who _will_ listen to ignorance and evil. That’s why clever people have to do what they can to stop it.”

“It sounds like censorship to me. Which I would think you would be against, since the government is certainly coming down on your comrades lately.”

“First, I’ve told you time and again, we aren’t part of the Soviet Club. Second, the government doesn’t count as clever people, or haven’t you seen a picture of the PM lately? Third”—Mark crossed his arms and raised his voice—“I’m not sure where all these new thoughts of yours are springing from, and I’m not sure I like it. Much better leave this to me, darling.”

Sylvia’s gaze darted to the table, and she spread a bit of dampness from their glasses with the tip of one finger. “You used to say I was clever.”

Relaxing all at once, Mark reached across the table for her hand. “Of course you are, darling, in your own way! But it’s not _this_ way, hmm? Don’t be cross. Not everyone is.”

Jemma watched the tableaux across from her: Mark’s benevolent patronizing, Sylvia’s humble cringing. It could have been an illustration from one of those sickening Victorian virtue novels. Except that Sylvia’s mouth remained firm and her gaze burned bronze, saying to anyone with eyes to see that she hadn’t retreated one inch. _Well done, old thing_ , she thought hard in Sylvia’s direction, then gathered her forces and joined the fray. “I’m sure I’m not at all; Fitz is forever having to explain it to me.” So he was, but only because she often didn’t pay as much attention as she ought to. “But it seems,” she continued cautiously, “very far away from us. I don’t understand why we’re involved at all. Surely Czechoslovakia and Germany must sort it out between themselves?”

Mark’s pitying look turned her direction. “And leave the end result up to accident, to the work of whomever happens to have more soldiers willing to die? That’s practically begging Germany to take over the entirety of Czechoslovakia, not merely the Sudetenland. There’s an entire generation there chuffed to bits to die for the Fatherland; the Czechs don’t have a prayer of outlasting them. And that would be disastrous.”

“For whom?” Jemma asked, busily communicating with Sylvia from under their eyelashes.

“Everyone.” Mark shoved back in his seat. “All of those Slovak countries. Spain. England, too, with Chamberlain kowtowing to Hitler at every opportunity.”

Jemma considered. If they took Mark’s opinion to be the opinion of the entire group, an alliance of any sort with Germany seemed unlikely. Stark’s information about German bombs aside, anyone who viewed Germany’s ascendancy with such vitriol would hardly provide them the raw materiel to gain even more power. Perhaps providing the same potential weapons to the Czechs? Or another player on the European stage? Possibilities remained. However, she was not yet willing to assume he spoke for everyone. Yet again, they had remained in place for nearly an hour without anyone acknowledging Mark at all; they almost appeared not to know he existed. He surely wouldn’t be trusted with anything too dangerous or sensitive. And then, too, she had her doubts about his ultimate intelligence. He might think he understood the group’s political theory and be utterly wrong. A pity, she thought with a sense of collegiate pride, that Oxford had turned out such a ninny.

“I thought you were a pacifist,” Sylvia said. “How many dismal rooms did you drag me to on purpose to hear speakers rant about non-violence?”

“One must be willing to amend one’s opinions, darling. And I still don’t believe in fighting for fighting’s sake.” Mark spread his hands out. “I believe in the judicious use of force. Expend it when necessary, certainly. You can’t make an omelette without breaking the eggs.”

With great difficulty, Jemma managed not to laugh out loud. The smugness with which he offered the cliché, as though he had thought it up himself and expected a parade in honor of his cleverness, gave her a strong desire to start a discussion of theoretical physics. Doing so, however, would entirely destroy the character she had decided to portray, so instead she nodded solemnly. “How true, Mr. Jones. And omelettes are so much better than raw eggs, so what do we lose by breaking them?”

“Well said.”

A shiver ran down her spine as she recognized the voice without turning to look at the speaker. A moment later, Charles slid into the fourth seat at their table, patting down Mark’s enthusiastic greetings with a laconic hand. Smiling genially and generally, he skipped past Mark and offered Sylvia the barest of acknowledgments before focusing the entirety of his attention on Jemma. Its force fell on her like a wave dashing against her face, irresistibly powerful and entirely consuming; _we two_ , it said, _are the only ones who matter_. She went under despite herself, catching her breath, before remembering her purpose and kicking hard against the current to surface again. Charles couldn’t be trusted. He manipulated his followers. He might be the head of a smuggling ring. And she didn’t want his admiration or attention; she only wanted to beat him at his own game. Taking a deep breath, she tried to display sufficient gratitude and awe as she spoke. “Was it? I didn’t know. It just seemed to follow naturally.”

“Oh no,” Charles said, “I agree entirely. Too often, the only way to progress is to destroy the old entirely. A pity, but it can’t be helped. I’m glad to hear you think the same.”

“Just like the French Revolution,” she said brightly, mentally apologizing to Edmund Burke and her history mistress and every single one of the tumbrels of innocent people.

Charles, fortunately, appeared amused. “Quite. I’m pleased you’ve decided to return, Mrs. Fitz-Simmons. Perhaps further consideration has put you in more sympathy with our position?”

“Oh, I wouldn’t say _that_. Not yet. It all depends.”

“Depends on what?”

She raised her chin, just a touch. “On what I hear this evening, of course.”

Sylvia shot her a warning glance, which she ignored and Charles and Mark appeared not to notice at all. Charles merely nodded, a reassuringly tolerant smile spreading across his face. “Of course. I’ll be addressing the crowd shortly. In the meantime, I would so like to answer any questions you may have. I understand from Jones that you’re very clever; I expect you have many things you’d like to know.”

How many times could a person use the word “I” in a speech meant to flatter the listener, Jemma wondered tiredly as she tried and rejected any number of questions. She had to be careful, to use her investigation skills, to work around to the answers she wanted to know. And to remember, always remember, that Charles had his own agenda in mind for her. How she was to attack and defend at the same time, she didn’t know. Deciding on the most innocuous query possible, she put her chin in her hand and leaned towards Charles. “Well, what I want to know is, what do you call yourselves? Mark says you aren’t communists, but you go to the Soviet Club—”

“We’re socialists. Not like the ones at the Soviet Club, and not like Russia, but we do hold to the teachings of Marx.”

As Marx’s most famous work was called _The Communist Manifesto_ Jemma didn’t quite understand how they reconciled that, but she decided not to draw attention to the inconsistency. She blinked in pretended confusion. “Oh, well, but there’s a problem, then. Of course I’m not exactly the aristocracy, but I’ve got heaps of money and my father—”

“We can none of us help our birth,” Charles murmured soothingly. “Many of us here are from similar backgrounds. The important thing is to support the cause however you can. In fact, having heaps of money can be extremely useful.”

“For charity?” she said, wide-eyed and innocent. Given Mark’s earlier reaction, she expected to a sound chastisement; if she had any luck at all, Charles might provide new information.

Charles was far more gracious than Mark. “Certainly, if we want to keep the power structure the way it is: those on top ignoring those on the bottom except to spread their largess. No. We need money to support the work, to help us in our efforts to dismantle the oppression of those who don’t deserve the power they hold. Money is power, you know.”

“Yes, of course.” So: money for the work. Money to smuggle? Money to purchase supplies? “Although,” she laughed lightly, “I don’t expect it costs so very much to print pamphlets, does it?”

Mark barked a laugh, only to cut it off when Charles shot him nearly in half with one eloquent glare. “More than you might think,” he said, “although, of course, they are not our only efforts.”

Jemma felt Sylvia still beside her. Hoping her sudden breathlessness would be attributed to curiosity and not nerves, she dropped her hands to the table and lowered her voice dramatically. “What else do you do?”

She certainly didn’t expect him to say “send the raw ingredients of TNT to our compatriots in Italy”, but neither did she expect the answer she received: a lingering pat of her clasped hands and another smile dashed her direction before Charles turned to Mark. “Jones, I’d like a drink. For the whole table, I think! Perhaps your charming fiancée will go with you to carry them.”

“Of course. Come along, Sylvia.”

He would have jerked her to her feet had she not anticipated his roughness and risen already. As they shoved through the crowds of people ringing their table, Sylvia turned over her shoulder and sent Jemma a weighted look, trying to tell her something Jemma couldn’t interpret. If it had been Fitz—but he wasn’t here, and she was trapped alone with an enigmatic honey-trap of a man who might be plotting to destroy everything she held dear. But there were people everywhere, she reminded herself, and Charles didn’t know that she wasn’t a potential acolyte. She had to trust in that. Glancing up at Charles as demurely as she knew how, she let a slow smile creep across her face. “That was awfully kind of you. I am a bit parched.”

“My pleasure. And necessary if I wanted to speak with you alone.” Reaching out again, he took her hands between both of his. “As I very much did.”

She had to force herself not to pull away, but she did allow him to feel the shudder that darted up her arms. “Why?”

“Why does anyone wish to speak to someone alone? I have something to say to you I don’t want anyone else to hear.”

His thumbs caressed the backs of her hands, brushing over the spot Fitz had kissed not three hours before. Bile rose in her throat. Of course there was nothing really there; the memory of his mouth would stay no matter what touched her skin. Even so. Even for England, she wouldn’t stand for Charles to wipe away Fitz. Breaking the clasp firmly, she put her hands in her lap and covered the place with her other palm. “I can’t imagine what you can’t say in front of my friends.”

“Yes, your friends.” Charles grimaced. “Miss Forbes seems charming, and Jones has his uses, but it’s not wise to make all one’s knowledge available to the general public.”

“Only for the clever people,” she said, and he nodded fervently.

“Precisely. I knew I could trust you to understand.”

She murmured encouragingly, feeling more as though she needed to take a long bath with every second.

“The fact is this.” He leaned forward. “You could be of very great use to our cause—you have, shall we say, resources that we currently lack. In fact, if I may speak frankly, you would be invaluable.”

“I’m sure I don’t see how.”

“Why, your work, of course! I understand you’re a chemist.”

“Among other things,” she said, “really, that’s only a little of what I do.”

“Yes, of course. You’re at the forefront of your field. I’ve been doing research. Quite brilliant, your papers, really…”

Her heart began racing, a flush rising to her cheeks as the blood rushed through her veins. How had he found her work? And why? “You’re very kind, but—”

“Our only difficulty,” he continued, taking no more heed of her than if she was a fly, “is your connections. Your attachments, that is.”

She willed herself calm. He mustn't suspect her. He mustn't know. “I thought those didn’t matter?”

A flash of irritation sparked in his eyes, instantly covered by conciliatory kindness, as though he knew he had expected too much of her. Could no one except Fitz avoid inconsistency in thought? “They don’t matter as far as your ability to join us. They certainly matter when it comes to how far we’re able to trust you, and how much you’re able to give. For example, you’re married. Your husband—would he be—”

“Fitz has nothing to do with this!”

Did she imagine the relief in Charles’s eyes, or had she only conjured up what she wanted to see? Regardless, she barreled on, sure of nothing so much as the fact that Charles must know Fitz was no danger to him. “He doesn’t even know I’m here. I haven’t told him anything. And he’ll never doubt my word, whatever I tell him, so you don’t have to worry about that.”

“That’s certainly gratifying,” Charles said, “however, even the best-kept secrets can come out between a husband and wife. Would he…ever think to join us?”

“Oh, no,” she said fervently. “Not Fitz. No, never. This isn’t his sort of thing at all. Anyway, it would be quite dangerous for him, with the work he does—he could be in a great deal of trouble if anyone knew. He might be in a great deal of trouble if anyone found out I was here. I would never want that for him.” Remembering Sylvia’s account of her conversation with Charles, she added hastily, “But if it’s about money, that isn’t a problem. He doesn’t balance my bank book for me. I’m quite independent, really.”

“So he would never be in the way of anything you chose to do for us?”

Her answer burst out of its own volition, born of a steadfast determination that Fitz would never be in Charles’s way at all, if she could help it: “I’d rather die!”

Charles examined her from beneath hooded eyelids for a long moment, the shadows cast by the dull lights flattening out his features and hiding his thoughts. Waiting for him to speak again, Jemma became aware of a slimy, slithering fear expanding sideways through her chest, pressing at her heart and her lungs so that it was a struggle to breathe evenly. He looked like a snake. Just like the ones in her dreams, who rose up from nowhere and killed those she cared about. Just like the one who draped himself around Fitz’s neck like a collar before striking, sucking the life from the person who made life worthwhile. For the first time since arriving, she questioned the entire plan. Why, oh why hadn’t she convinced Sylvia to do the sensible thing and go to the police? Why had she willingly waded into a nest of vipers? For a blinding second, she expected Charles to strike.

Instead, he canted his head, turning his observation from ominous to curious, and lazily yawned as he consulted his watch. “Good God, is that the time? I was meant to begin my speech ten minutes ago. Perhaps you’ll stay to hear it, Mrs. Fitz-Simmons, and that will help you to know if you can be as dedicated to our work as to yours.”

She laughed, trying not to let him hear the way her voice threatened to desert her. “I can hardly leave until Mr. Jones decides to escort Miss Forbes and me home. This city is like a warren, isn’t it?”

With a final, vulpine smile, Charles rose smoothly to his feet and glided away towards the stairs. Jemma sat, shivering, until Sylvia hand fell on her shoulder.

“Jemma, are you alright? What did he say to you?”

Seeing Mark over Sylvia’s shoulder, Jemma brushed off her nerves as best she could. “Nothing, Sylvia, only I suddenly got a chill. For all the people here it isn’t very warm, is it? I should have brought my fur.”

“You wouldn’t want to bring a fur to this place; it might get spoiled.” Sylvia darted a quick glance to the side where Mark, having settled into his chair, appeared too enraptured by Charles’s sudden appearance above the crowds to pay attention to her. Her voice creaked over her next, too casual words: “another time, I’ll lend you a sweater. If you don’t mind that they all reek of perfume.”

“Do they?” Jemma squeaked out, and then the rapid, angry swell of applause as Charles raised his hands for attention made conversation impossible. Morse code, Jemma thought, as soon as possible, she would get Fitz to teach her Morse code. It seemed the sort of thing he would know.

The applause stopped all at once, as though someone had switched off the radio, and Charles surveyed the crowd with tenderness, a wise and gracious king addressing his subject. “My friends,” he said, “we are met on this black day to mourn, certainly, but also to build. Chamberlain’s policies, made in conjunction with the treacherous French, doom Czechoslovakia to fall before the German threat.”

So far, so much what Mark said. Jemma offered him a minute apology.

“But you know—as you can’t but help know—that this is merely another example of the dangerously foolish and foolishly dangerous actions undertaken by men who have no understanding of the world or the needs of the people over whom they rule like petty gods. They sit in Whitehall and Westminster and Paris and Berlin and move men about on the chessboard of Europe, re-drawing lines like schoolboys drawing maps in the dirt, heedless of the consequences. My friends, should such men be in power? Should we sit idly by and allow them to drive us heedlessly into destruction, as they did thirty years ago? I say no. You say no.”

As though anyone would say yes. The Great War devastated Europe, destroying the land and a generation of men and boys in one fell swoop. No one wanted a repetition—in fact, Jemma had no doubt Chamberlain’s actions towards Germany were meant to avoid just such an outcome. Whether that was even possible was another matter entirely, but it certainly wouldn’t be for lack of trying.

“And yet, my friends, they say _yes_. With every action they ignore our voices, trample our rights—I ask you, should such men be in power?”

 _No!_ the room shouted as one.

“No,” Charles said, his silken voice somehow more menacing than the strident energy of the crowd. “No. The wheels of democracy run too slowly, grinding good men to powder. My friends, desperate times call for desperate measures. If we believe our cause is just, there is nothing we will not be willing to do to see it come to pass—nothing, I say, even to the sacrificing of that which we hold dearest. Peace and freedom mean nothing in such a society as that which we suffer under; better for our fellow men to be dead than the pawns of despots; our very lives are like sand on the beach in the midst of time, so why do we cling to them with such strength? The only way to progress is through blood, as our savage counterparts in Russia have proved. Their methods leave much to be desired, but their ideas are correct—no one is innocent. Everyone contributes to the system of oppression. And since this is so, everyone must be held accountable. Everyone must suffer the punishment. We will sacrifice as many as necessary to bring an end to the system that grinds, grinds, grinds men down into dust.”

She wanted to vomit. His words were a chocolate-coated arsenic pill, sweet going down and deadly once swallowed; he hid horrors behind a smooth speech. Playing on his audience’s desire for peace, for perceived justice, for power, Charles meant to convince them that the only way forward lay through the valley of death. To her horror, the wild-eyed fanaticism around the room, tinged with red in Mark’s eyes beside her, showed he was succeeding. How could they believe this tripe? More unbelievably, how could they assent to it? Did they not understand that their leader called them to kill and to die for this?

Charles continued at length, standing before the crowd like a master conductor before an orchestra. Each swipe of his hand or swoop of his voice drew out the exact reaction he wanted, silent horror or noisy anger or a low, vicious rumble that frightened Jemma more than the rest put together. Anger exploded and dissipated. Who could tell what slow, steady grievance would do? Sylvia’s hand found hers under the table as they listened, as unable to stop as one was to look away from a train crash.

After—Lord, who knew how long? It might have been twenty minutes; it might have been the entire lifespan of a tortoise—Charles clasped his hands together and looked out over the rustling, roiling crowd. “But my friends. I understand it may seem that the situation is dire. I understand that you may question: why are we not acting now? Am I just like Them, eternally talking and never acting? I assure you this is not the case. Even now, we _are_ working, we _are_ acting to bring about the change you and I so desire. If it does not appear so, it is only because the time is not yet right. You must continue on as you are, trusting in me to act for your benefit, but always ready to rise when I call. Together, we will end this system of oppression and rise to our rightful place!”

As one body, the room roared its approval, stamping and clapping and shouting. Mark stood on his chair and applauded so hard his hands grew red, nearly weeping as he bellowed “Charles! Charles!” The man himself accepted the accolades with humility for a minute, then put one hand in the air like a priest blessing the congregation before turning on his heel and disappearing up the stairs.

Sylvia spun to face Jemma, lowering her voice enough that she could only barely be heard over the din. “The scents you mentioned—a lady at the bar knows where to purchase them. But Jemma, I’m beginning to believe we’ve got a whole cosmetics department’s worth of samples on our hands.”

Jemma watched the way the people at the bottom of the stairs surged up after Charles, glanced at Mark still applauding and cheering, tried not to shake at the thrill of fear darting up her spine. “I know we wanted to find them ourselves, but I believe we may benefit from the expertise of a _parfumeur_.”

She willed Sylvia to understand. When they discussed it in her lab before Fitz’s interruption, Sylvia had adamantly opposed going straight to the police—worried, still, about what might happen to Mark and confident that the authorities wouldn’t take them seriously without more proof. Jemma had only allowed this course of action as a tactical retreat, hopeful that they might gain enough information to assuage Sylvia’s fears. Instead, it seemed, their evening had given both of them the same strong new one. Charles’s manifesto, though nebulous in detail, had grown enough in scope to become not just worrisome, but terrifying. They now had no choice, surely, but to involve someone better equipped to handle the situation than two female scientists.

Sylvia’s grip on her hand was tight enough to crack her metacarpals, but she didn’t try to pull away. Instead she waited with her eyes closed, hoping Sylvia would finally see reason and agree to inform the police, resolving that even if she didn’t she, Jemma, couldn’t in good conscience keep quiet any longer: if Sylvia didn’t agree, she would have no choice but to take matters into her own hands.

And betray her friend?

Better that than her country.

Opening her eyes, she prepared to plead—she didn’t want to ruin the second-best friendship she had ever enjoyed without giving it a final effort—only to find Sylvia’s chin firmly set and her face turned resolutely away from her fiancé. “Of course you’re right,” she said, voice quavering. “Perhaps your father can recommend someone.”

“I’m sure he can,” Jemma said, nearly collapsing in relief and squeezing Sylvia’s hand just as tightly. Under the bedlam still erupting in the room, her mind finally grew quiet. They would take the information to the police, who would take the necessary action, and she could wash her hands of the whole mess. She wouldn’t have to lie to Fitz anymore. She’d return to the sanity of her work and her home, solve murders with her husband, and pretend peace wasn’t as fragile as it seemed. Another day—at most, two. And by Wednesday it would all be over.

Beside her, Sylvia’s eyes trailed back to Mark almost against their will. Jemma watched, suddenly sorrier than she had ever been before. At least, it would be over for her.


	21. Interlude

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please enjoy this small chapter which could easily be summed up in a paragraph but I couldn't bear to lose the work or the fun. Your regular monster chapters will return Monday.

Although her father rose early, Jemma knew better than to send a telegram to the house before nine o’clock in the morning if she didn’t wish to send her mother into a long-winded lecture meant to cover her worry. As she took the 7.20 to Oxford and went directly into her lectures, the chance to send off the message didn’t arise until the mid-morning tea break, when she dashed from the Schools Building to the telegraph office on High and scrawled out the few words three separate times before the telegraph operator understood them. Honestly, she seethed, it would have been faster to call, but the sensitive nature of her question made her hesitate to bawl it out in a public box. Finally, it was on its merry way:

DAD PLEASE INFORM BEST MEMBER OF POLICE TO SPEAK TO MUCH LOVE

That done, she thought the better of it and added:

SEND RESPONSE TO LONDON HOUSE AFTER FIVE PM PLEASE

It might be safer to receive the response in Oxford, away from any danger Fitz might stumble upon it, but as she would be able to do nothing with it until returning home, there was no reason to make a telegraph boy run all over Oxford looking for her. Much the better that she leave the whole thing to be dealt with this evening, allowing her to devote her ample reserves of attention to her sorely neglected work.

An admirable plan, and a valiant effort, but despite her best intentions she found herself reading the same page over and over again, unable to stop thinking about last night. With Charles gone the club emptied quickly, though Mark insisted on staying until the bitter end. The silence gave her plenty of time to consider all the information she had gained and worry about whatever Sylvia might have heard on her excursion to the bar—which, if it came to it, she still didn’t know in detail. It didn’t matter. The knowledge that someone at the club had been discussing not just dangerous chemicals but where to procure them, coupled with Charles’s apparent and horrifying familiarity with her work, provided her more than enough to worry over. The only consolation remaining was that “the time is not yet right”. Whatever Charles had in motion, it had not yet come to fruition; there was still time to prevent something dreadful from happening.

Her preoccupation continued through her thesis meeting with Weaver, who had supervised enough of her education to become, not quite a friend, but a vaguely aunt-like figure and acquainted with Jemma’s few moods. After the fourth time she asked Jemma to repeat herself, she sat back in her chair and folded her hands. “I will say this isn’t like you, Simmons.”

Jemma blinked blearily, desperate for some rest from her inexhaustible thoughts. “I’m sorry, Dr. Weaver. I know it isn’t. I’ve been so busy lately it’s beginning to run me down, I think—I never learned to do this as an undergraduate, you know, so I suppose it’s finally come home to roost.”

“There’s a reason few students continue their education after they marry. Certainly very few of our female students.”

“Oh, no!” Weaver had not approved of Jemma’s marriage, feeling it would be a waste of her academic potential; even now she had a habit of quick asides that extolled the virtues of celibacy. Jemma knew she would never convince her tutor supervisor that marrying Fitz had been the best thing possible for her work, but she couldn’t let even oblique aspersions pass unaddressed. “It wasn’t that—Fitz’s been busy himself, and I always have plenty of time to work and prepare. I just haven’t been sleeping as much as I should, I think.”

“Aha.”

The curve of Weaver’s eyebrow spoke volumes, and Jemma flushed without reason. She _had_ stayed up til nearly midnight last night, waiting for Fitz, but not for the salacious activities Weaver imagined. They had only drunk cocoa and then collapsed into bed in a warm, chocolate-scented pile, pressing kisses wherever their mouths happened to land until they fell asleep. She wouldn’t have been able to sleep without his steady presence and whiffing snore, anyway. Sometimes she wondered how she ever slept without Fitz at all. “I’m sorry, Dr. Weaver. I’ll do better next week. Something that’s been worrying me will be coming to an end soon, and I’ll be better able to concentrate.”

Weaver surveyed her over the half-glasses she wore to look more intimidating—not that her students required the reminder, but the University members she dealt with often did. “It’s all a matter of priority, Simmons. Never neglect to remember that.”

“Believe me, doctor,” she swore fervently, “I never do.”

In truth, she could think of little else. Her responsibilities and loyalties swirled through her head like the leaves she watched out the window of her train back, caught in the gusts of wind caused by its passing: dancing, showing their many sides, drifting away when she wanted to catch hold, plastering against her face when she reached for something else. She turned around in quick circles among them, peering through the dust for the large golden one she had held and treasured before a gust flung it from her hand. Sharp-edged brown leaves flew up in her eyes; red and orange leaves with their own splendor presented themselves for her approval; a white, parchment-like leaf landed on her shoulder like the silk hood of her college gown, and she held it down with one hand. But the golden one—if she could just—

“Miss?”

She started awake, her forehead throbbing a little where it had rested against the cool window. The ticket puncher gave her an apologetic grimace. “Your ticket’s for Paddington, miss, and we’re here now.”

“Oh! Thank you.” Gathering her things, she surreptitiously ensured she hadn’t accidentally drooled in her exhaustion and determined it would be best to take the Tube home. A taxi might be more comfortable and take less time, but carried the risk of falling asleep in public again. She was too tired to deal with the embarrassment.

Finally reaching home, she offered Lane a wan smile as he held open the door and took her hat and coat. “Is Mr. Fitz-Simmons home yet?” she asked, wanting nothing more than to put on her slippers and bury herself in his arms—rather like a charwoman, she thought, but without criticism. Charwomen always had millions of children of whom they boasted with glowing faces; they must love their husbands very much. She felt a kinship with them. Surely she couldn’t be any more exhausted with a million children than she was now.

“Er, yes, ma’am. But—”

A long, golden _blaaaaat_ explained Lane’s discomfort, and she sighed, consulting the hall mirror to ensure she still looked presentable. “Trip and Mack are here.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Lane relaxed as much as he ever did, his spine compressing from 180 degrees to 177. “They arrived about a quarter-hour ago; Mr. Fitz-Simmons said they will stay to dine, if you agree?”

She couldn’t say no, much as she selfishly wished to; they could hardly send Mack and Trip into the night unfed. It would be a serious breach of hospitality. And anyway, she liked them both. “Of course, Lane, I’m delighted.”

“And these arrived for you, ma’am.” Holding up the silver tray, Lane offered her a fat stack of telegrams, five or six at least in their slim, waxed envelopes. “They have been arriving, in fact, at regular intervals since twelve noon.”

Jemma took the stack in hand, sighing again. “Thank you, Lane. That will be all.” Smacking the stack against the palm of her other hand, she made for the drawing room, from which the music emitted in hot, shining phrases.

As soon as she opened the door, the trumpet stopped, leaving the drums and piano pounding out a beat. “Hey, Fitzy,” Trip called, a wide white smile pointed her direction, “your missus is here.”

His head jerked up from the keyboard, a smile of his own spreading across his face, and he shoved back the bench to stand. “I couldn’t reach you—I did try to call. They can go home before dinner if you like.”

“Ho, now,” Mack said, nodding genially at her as she came over to the trio.

“Don’t be silly, of course they’ll stop for dinner.” Presenting her cheek to be kissed, she took a long breath of him and felt instantly better. She didn’t even have to fight to say “I’m glad to have them,” and mean it.

Fitz ran a hand up the back of his neck, lowering his voice. “I did try to ring. Only, we couldn’t rehearse last night—”

She shot him a look that clearly said _ugh, Fitz_ and he subsided. “But I am going to leave you gentlemen to it until then, if you’ll forgive me. Fitz, is your mother here?”

He nodded. “Study, I think.”

“Then I will retire until we reconvene for dinner.” With another smile around the circle, starting and ending at Fitz, she left them mid-count and went across the hall to the study. Jean looked up at the sound of the door, a wooly winter cap perched on her head. “Just to muffle the sound,” she explained at Jemma’s quizzical glance. “I know this is the latest thing, but I’m too Victorian.”

Jemma threw herself down into her comfortable wingback, letting the telegrams fall into a fan in her lap. “Jean, please don’t mind if you say something and I don’t answer? I’ve had a bad habit of that today.”

“Certainly not, pet. In fact, I doubt I’ll say anything myself.”

Picking up the telegrams, Jemma surveyed them skeptically. One of these held the answer she sought; the others, no doubt, held a potential headache. Which one? She chose one at random and ripped into it sans letter opener, too languid to consider searching for one.

WHAT SORT OF TROUBLE HAVE YOU GOT YOURSELF INTO THAT YOU NEED THE POLICE?

Unlikely to be from her father.

OR IS IT FITZ? DON’T WORRY DARLING YOUR FATHER KNOWS ALL THE BEST BARRISTERS.

Clearly not from her father.

I HAVE RESTRAINED YOUR MOTHER FROM COMING TO TOWN. THE CHIEF INSPECTOR IS THE MAN YOU NEED. SOLID MAN. READS THEOLOGY IN HIS SPARE TIME. REGARDS TO FITZ AND HIS MOTHER.

Not a name, but good enough. Sneaking a glance at Jean, Jemma considered the feasibility of reaching Sylvia without alerting anyone’s suspicions and decided, between the thick wooly hat and the rather loud music pouring through the house, she had a decent chance. And she did so want to get this settled as soon as possible. Piling the telegrams on the tea table, she skipped to the phone and rang Sylvia’s boardinghouse, mindlessly adding improvements to a tiny schematic Fitz had left in a pile of papers on the desk. It rather looked like a miniature version of the device he showed her last week, the Exterminator’s Mate or whatever fool name he insisted on calling it, only the chambers for the liquids wouldn’t be sufficient to produce the necessary amount of gas…

“Hello?”

“Oh! Sylvia.” She dropped the pen and blotted the page, leaving it at the top of the sheaf of papers to dry. “I’m ringing to tell you that my father had provided me the name of a _parfumeur_ and I wondered if you would be able to consult with him tomorrow morning. Or at lunchtime, perhaps? I know it’s late notice but I’ve only just heard back from him.”

“I can’t tomorrow.”

Not expecting a flat refusal, Jemma opened her mouth and closed it again before finding a response. “Oh? I’m sorry it’s inconvenient.”

Sylvia sighed, sounding as exhausted as Jemma felt. “I meant to ring you this evening. My department head has a bee in his bonnet about this new line of research we’re developing—he has a meeting with Mr. Fitz-Simmons Thursday morning and he’d like to be able to present it then. I was scarcely able to look up today, much less go for lunch, and tomorrow looks like more of the same.”

“I’m sure I could borrow you for an hour or so—goodness knows I’d like to avoid taking advantage of my position, but—”

“No!” Huffing a frustrated breath, Sylvia repeated herself less forcefully. “I’m sorry, only, that would be awful for me in the department. I’m _persona non grata_ as it is, and to reap the benefits of friendship with the president’s wife while everyone else slaves away? He’s only looking for a reason to terminate me.”

“That isn’t fair.”

“No. It isn’t. But it’s the truth, regardless. But Thursday, perhaps?”

“Oh, I don’t—” But the refusal died on her tongue. In her diary, the day merely had a line labeled “Fitz” that extended through the whole day, but it seemed his did not match hers. If Fitz had a meeting at least part of their day would be spent apart. Realistically, that was a boon; she could utilize that time and avoid troublesome questions. She would speak to Andrew about scheduling meetings on Their Day next week. “Yes,” she agreed, “Thursday, as soon as we can. While your head is in the meeting. It’s not…that is, I don’t think one day will result in that much difference, do you?”

“No. I don’t think the—the sale will be very soon. They’re waiting for something, I think.”

Waiting for what, Jemma wondered, and how would one know when the secret signal came? “Time is of the essence, but I agree. Thursday, then. Come to my lab and we’ll go together.”

“All right. Good night, Jemma.”

“Good night.”

She hung up the receiver and pushed down the sharp sense of regret. She had so wanted it to be done with the whole mess by Wednesday night so she could enjoy their Thursday in peace—only she wouldn’t have had that, regardless, would she? There would always be things tugging at their time to keep them apart: MI and social engagements, even good things like his jazz and her doctorate. She remembered telling him once that they couldn’t get into a sulk and ignore everyone else simply because they’d rather be alone. Apparently he had learned the lesson too well, and she now had to swallow her own medicine.

Once the evening proper began, of course, her petty complaints seemed even more ridiculous—Mack and Trip were good company, and neither dinner nor the hour after when they played jazzy renditions of songs from Jean’s youth proved quite as unbearable as she feared. She even managed to enjoy herself a little, and to shake their hands on the doorstep with an invitation to come again soon. Not until Fitz bounced into bed next to her, peeling the covers away from her face with a worried wrinkle between his eyes, did she realize she might not have hid her feelings as successfully as she thought.

“You all right?” he asked, “you rather looked like someone had replaced your spine with an iron rod. I really am sorry I didn’t ask you if it was all right. I should have remembered you would be tired when you got home.”

She snaked a hand out from under the covers to cup his cheek, her thumb brushing over the end-of-the-day scruff. “It was all right, Fitz, truly. I am tired, but it’s something else.”

“Anything you want to tell me?”

Only everything. She bit her lip, considering. “A project I’m working on,” she said finally, “I thought I was going to be done with it tomorrow, but circumstances outside my control have prevented that from being so. And I’d like to be done with it, is all.”

“Lord, don’t I understand that.” He shut his eyes and shuddered, whether at his own thoughts or the feeling of her finger tracing the curve of his hairline, she couldn’t say. “Fortunately, I think mine _is_ finishing off tomorrow—at least I said it would be done then, so it had better—and then, have you got any time tomorrow afternoon?”

“Why?” she asked, hoping he had something extremely irresponsible in mind.

“Well, it’s Wednesday, and we said we would try to see—”

“Larry Osbourne.” She fought and vanquished the desire to bury her head in the pillow. “Of course, you’re right. Yes, I’ve time. The rector said early afternoon, didn’t he?”

Fitz nodded. “At one, or thereabouts, you think? That ought to give me enough time.”

“All right.” She drew him to her for a brief kiss, then released him. “Will you have to go back to the office when you’re done, or may I have you to myself after that?”

Falling onto his back, he stared at the ceiling as though his diary was scrawled across it. “I’ll do my best, but I can’t promise anything. You know I’m completely Andrews’s slave.” Screwing up his eyes, he reconsidered his words. “At work. Everywhere else, I’m all yours.”

If only that were so, she thought wistfully as she watched him, the delicate corner of his mouth, the slight twitch to his shoulders as he settled back into the pillow. Then, realizing that here at least it _was_ , she threw her arm across his chest and moved in until their two bodies had no gap between them. “And I’ll thank you to remember it.”

“Why would I ever forget?” he said as he pulled her close, and, having finally got what she wanted all day, she closed her eyes and allowed herself to drift away.


	22. Ye Shall Know the Truth

Time, Fitz thought, had a strange habit of fitting itself to the exact opposite of one’s needs: when you wanted it to speed up, it dragged on forever, but if you needed more it dropped away like grains of sand. Wednesday morning it couldn’t seem to make up its mind—due, perhaps, to the fact that he, Fitz, couldn’t either. He wished with all his heart to be done with the new designs for Smith and have them out of the office well before one, but it would be a race to manage it and he really could have used another hour at least. The plans, while fully complying with Smith’s demands and absolutely functional, lacked the second-checks he preferred to give a project before sending it into development. He had incorporated the corrections Jemma had left him last night—a serious slip-up, that, and one only saved by the project’s resemblance to the Exterminator’s Mate—but hadn’t spun out all the possible reactions with chemicals other than the ones she assumed. Glancing at the plans at quarter ‘til, he chewed the edge of his thumb and wrestled with his conscience. To leave or not to leave? That was the question.

The intercom buzzed, cutting off his poor attempt at a soliloquy. “Mr. Klein is on the phone for you, sir.”

“Thank you, Andrews.” Coming to a quick decision, he began rolling the plans with one hand as he picked up the receiver with the other. “H’lo?”

Aaron’s voice came at a brisk clip, nothing like his usual genial drawl. “I’m in a frightful hurry, on my way back from lunch, but I wanted to tell you as soon as possible. My Uncle Saul’s business partner Elias told him in response to Uncle Saul’s query on my behalf on your behalf that he most certainly _did_ hold a _substantial_ note with the name Osbourne attached as late as this last July as ever was, and he was not the only one in our circle to do so.”

“Larry?” Fitz asked, rapidly winding his way through that overly complicated sentence as he wrapped a rubber band around the schematics.

“He didn’t say,” Aaron said regretfully, “my fault, I suppose, since I only asked about Osbourne that information wasn’t volunteered. There has to be a certain amount of privacy to these things, you know, or they’ll find themselves no longer the favored lenders. I could try to find out, if you like?”

“If it’s not too much trouble. If it is, it’s all right; we’re going to talk to him this afternoon. He might lie, but I hope he doesn’t do so in church.”

Aaron laughed, then made an exasperated noise. “Oh, blast, time’s up, must get back, something’s happening on the floor. Probably more news from Germany. Kiss your brilliant wife for me, old man!”

“I will kiss my brilliant wife for myself,” he said, but the line had already disconnected before the sentence escaped in its entirety.

“Promise?”

Her voice made a smile spread across his face before he even looked up, and he set the receiver down with a shrug. “If you’d like a kiss from Aaron too, I’m happy to oblige, but if you don’t mind—”

“Oh, I’m happy either way.”

“Oh, then. Me as well.”

They looked at each other for a moment, trying and failing to keep straight faces. Then she laughed, making him grin as well, and she came to throw her arms around his neck and kiss him properly. “That’s from me to you, and you only. Please don’t pass it to Aaron.”

“That I most certainly will promise,” he said, gazing down into her deep brown eyes and remembering all over again how being with her was like breathing fresh air after sitting in smoky, stuffy, fishy rooms for your whole life. “I’m almost done; I’ve just got to send these off.”

“All right; I’m a little early.”

“Couldn’t wait to see me?”

“No,” she said, stopping his heart as easily as she might flick out a light. Then, pulling out of his arms, she hopped up to sit on the edge of his desk, placing one hand so it bridged the roll of plans. “What did Aaron want?”

He tried not to stare at the schematics laying there like a stick of dynamite—if he didn’t draw attention to them, perhaps she wouldn’t notice. “Ah. The plot thickens, my dear Watson. Only, one moment, let me send for the courier.”

Snagging the plans from under her arm, he took them into the outer office and handed them to a blasé Andrews with firm instructions to ring up Whitehall and have them send over a messenger and a strict warning that he was not, under any circumstances, to open or look at the contained plans, nor allow anyone else to do so, nor to give them to anyone besides—

“I know, Mr. Fitz-Simmons.” Andrews flickered one eyebrow. “You’ve sent things to Whitehall before.”

Coughing, Fitz retreated.

When he re-entered the office, Jemma had moved from her place on his desk to stand by the large plate glass windows, staring out them to the city below. At each elbow, the fingers of the opposite hand gripped so hard her knuckles were white, whiter than normal even. Fitz hesitated, closing the door silently behind him. He knew that stance—something had fallen on her shoulders again, something she meant to keep to herself, something she probably shouldn’t. His wife believed in suffering in silence—the natural result, he thought, of having a mother who only showed emotion by relaxing her lips—and, no matter how often he assured her he wanted her to say what she felt, sometimes she simply refused. Was this the same problem as last night, he wondered? Or was there something else?

As though she sensed his presence, she turned over her shoulder and let her hands fall to her sides. “Goodness, you’ve been eons. Andrews proving difficult?”

“As always,” he said, opening the door again to usher her out, “you know how much I hate not keeping my diary myself.”

He explained Aaron’s news in the taxi, making her bounce in her seat. “We’re so near the answer, Fitz, don’t you think? It’s like that moment when one is waiting for the solution to turn green and confirm all one’s dearest hypotheses.”

“Not something I’m familiar with,” he said, “but I trust your experience. How shall we handle this, Simmons? Straightforward accusations or go round the back way?”

Her forehead creased as she considered. “The back way, I think. He’s been awfully slippery so far without even knowing we suspected him; best not frighten him off straight off.”

“Agreed.” Rapping at the window to let the driver know to stop, he turned back to catch her gaze and hold it steadily. “Remember to be careful, Jemma. We’ve never interrogated a murderer before.”

Taking his hand on the seat between them, she smiled indulgently. “But he doesn’t know we suspect him of murder. Anyway, he could hardly kill us both in church.”

“Tell that to Thomas a Beckett,” he grumbled as they got out of the cab. But for all her bravado, he noticed she didn’t let go his hand.

In the daylight, All Souls looked like a kaleidoscope held up to the sun: golden light streaming through jewel-colored glass, dust motes dancing like spangles through the air. The pews lay deserted and quiet, bathed in the honey glow. The air smelled of flowers and incense and cold, and the tiniest bit of wine. And at the very front of the sanctuary, a black-clad man with his dark hair brushing his collar knelt at the altar rail, in every appearance of being deep in conversation with his Deity.

Jemma nudged Fitz. _Say something._

He shook his head slightly, tongue-tied. _He’s praying!_

With a mighty roll of her eyes, she stepped forward and called out, her voice echoing off the pillars and pews. “Lawrence Osbourne?”

The man stiffened. Then, making the sign of the cross towards the altar, he slowly rose to his feet and turned around. If anything, the bruise around his eye had only deepened in color. “Behold, your sins shall find you out.”

Fitz recognized the quotation, slightly surprised at the wry tone in which it was uttered. Either not knowing or not caring, Jemma merely lifted her chin. “Have you sinned, Mr. Osbourne?”

“Of course! Haven’t we all?” He shook his head slightly. “But my many sins do not include killing my father, Mrs. Fitz-Simmons. I promise you that. Oh, damn!” Wincing, he reached up to tug at the strand of hair that fell in front of his eyes. “I forgot. I’m not supposed to add supernumerary promises. Let your yes be yes and all, you know.”

“You’re not supposed to say ‘damn’, either,” Fitz said.

“True,” he agreed, “but I haven’t yet found a tolerable substitute and it slips out in spite of myself.”

“Drat works fairly well,” Fitz offered, having had a similar problem in his youth. “The tick of the t really pierces.”

“Drat,” Larry tried. “Drat, drat, drat.”

“Fascinating as this conversation is,” Jemma broke in, only barely containing her eyeroll, “we do have some other questions for you, Mr. Osbourne.”

“I thought you might. I don’t suppose you’d mind coming down here, so we don’t have to shout?” He spread his hands out innocently. “We can sit in the pews away from heavy things if you’re worried I’ll bash you over the head too.”

They consulted each other quickly, Larry rocking back and forth on his heels while he waited for their response. Then, tucking Jemma behind him as much as she would allow, Fitz led the way down the aisle. “But we’ll sit a few rows back, if you don’t mind.”

Nodding eagerly, Larry gestured to a pew on the left side of the aisle, tucking himself into the one directly across and smoothing out the creases of his trousers as he waited for them to settle. Jemma shot him a curious look on her way into the pew. He tucked his hands in his pockets guiltily. “Bad habit, I’m afraid. Too many moral failings to improve on at once. Before we begin, may I thank you both for what you did last week? It was a proper mess and no mistake. I was really grateful.”

“Funny way to show it,” Fitz said, resting his hands on the end of the pew and leaning back on them, and Jemma nodded from her seat.

“You might have stayed to tell us yourself.”

“Or told us on Sunday instead of haring off after a doctor.”

With every appearance of regret, he nodded again. “I know I should have. But if I did, don’t you know, you would have known it was me and wanted to ask all kinds of questions, and I hoped to avoid that.”

Fitz kicked at a bit of carpet fluff. “Why? If you’ve nothing to hide, that is—”

“I didn’t say I had nothing to hide.” Larry closed his eyes, canting his face towards the ceiling. Then, firmly tucking the corners of his mouth back, he clasped his hands together in his lap and faced them steadily. “The thing of it is, I can’t lie about the answers to the questions you ask me, but I’d rather no one knew. I’ve nothing to do with my father’s death, but I’ve read my fair share of detective stories and I know how things come out. It would be embarrassing.”

“We’re good at keeping secrets,” Jemma said. “If it really has nothing to do with the murder, we won’t tell a soul.”

“So.” Inclining his head, he made a _go on_ gesture with one hand.

Fitz raised an eyebrow at Jemma, who returned it with two of her own. So much for their subtle approach. Larry not only knew why they were here, he had also anticipated the questions they would ask. In which case, they may as well take aim and fire. If he was going to lie, he would do so regardless of if they dropped the question like a penny or a brick. “What did you and your father row about?”

“Isn’t it obvious?”

Clearly not, Fitz retorted mentally, or they wouldn’t have asked. But beside him, Jemma sucked in a sharp, incredulous breath. “Because you wanted to join the church?” Her voice pitched towards the ceiling. “You quarreled and didn’t speak about it or to each other for nearly a year—because you wanted to join the church?”

“Got it in one.”

Glancing around again, Fitz found himself boggled. The ministry was a perfectly respectable profession, not lucrative perhaps but nothing to be ashamed of—unless you belonged to a different religion, in which case it might be a bit embarrassing, but Mrs. Osbourne at least professed no faith and that seemed unlikely. Certainly not something worth disowning your own child over. “But why?”

Jemma leaned forwards, bumping her knuckle into the back of his hand. “Oh, Fitz, don’t you see? It’s the same as it was for Sylvia.”

Larry’s lazy eyes opened wider. “By Jove, I suppose that’s true. I hadn’t considered it. Yes, exactly the same.”

“You mean,” Fitz said, shoving aside five layers of other things to recall their conversation over tea from weeks ago, “that he disapproved of it as a career choice.”

“For me.” Larry’s resigned smile held a hint of sadness. “Other people, certainly, but not his only son. We all knew that Budgie would never make a splash and Daphne’s the sort to marry and divorce and marry and divorce; Father had rather pinned his hope of a legacy on me. This is not that—at least, not his sort of legacy. But he couldn’t see it that way.”

“And so he dropped you,” Jemma said musingly. “But I don’t understand why the secrecy. You’re hardly the first son to choose a career that disappoints his father.”

“Well, it isn’t very honorable to spread such a story, is it? Even when it’s true. Much better to stay silent.”

“Honor your father and mother.” Fitz nodded. Jemma made a noise halfway between understanding and exasperation, which he found appropriate. Certainly you didn’t drag your father’s name through the mud to the general public, but to keep it from your own sisters, who presumably knew him well enough on their own? It seemed a bit far.

Not knowing Jemma, Larry only heard the understanding. “Exactly. So I went away to receive my training and I took a post where no one was likely to come, and I stay away from my old haunts and friends as much as possible so no one will ask me about it. It’s better that way, anyway; too much temptation in that old life. And I’m so busy, anyway.” His chest puffed out a bit. “I’m choir director, you know.”

“But you don’t always stay away,” Jemma said.

“No,” Larry allowed with a dip of his head. “When my mother or sisters ask me, I try to go for their sakes. That’s why I was at the show on Friday, and the party when it happened. But the guvnor didn’t speak to me all night, and I certainly wasn’t rowing with him in the study before bashing him in the head. What would be the point? I’ve already taken my vows. I can’t simply stop now.”

“I don’t suppose you have an alibi to prove it?” Fitz asked, sensing Jemma deep in thought beside him.

“No one knows when it happened, do they? Do you?” Fitz shook his head and Larry sat back, crossing his arms. “I didn’t leave the party all night. Any number of people must have seen me. But no, I haven’t got anything that proves it. I wish I did.”

Throwing a glance at Jemma and receiving a slight headshake in return, Fitz grasped for the next question at random. “And do you know who gave the interview in the paper about your mother’s experience? It’s anonymous, so—”

“Oh, that?” Larry’s surprise was, in Fitz’s opinion, unfeigned. “It wasn’t me, and it wasn’t Iris or Daph, and Mother wouldn’t talk about it with Budgie. It could be the servants, but they said not, and we’ve always found them trustworthy.”

“They could be lying, though.”

“They _could_ be,” Larry said dubiously, “but I’m not as stupid as I look. I rather think not. I expect it was only someone making something up to set his story apart from all the others.”

Which would, Fitz thought, open that reporter up for a rather nasty lawsuit if the Osbournes felt so inclined, making Larry’s suggestion doubtful. No, someone had to give the reporter that story—who, then, was most likely to lie about it? Another question for another time.

“When you say ‘too much temptation.’”

Both men whipped their heads around to look at Jemma, who was toying with the fingers of her gloves. “What temptations do your old haunts offer you that you’re avoiding so studiously?”

“What don’t they?” Spreading out a hand, Larry began to tick off the items on his fingers: “drinking too much. Drugs, of course, which are against the law as well. Inappropriate relationships with women, which I am sadly liable to…”

“What about gambling?”

Instead of answering, Larry shoved to his feet, pacing down the aisle away from them. “Hey!” Fitz said, starting forwards, “we’ve still got questions!”

Jemma popped to her feet as well. “We won’t let you get away again!”

Stopping, Larry brought his hands to his face and scrubbed, his head bowed, his shoulders defeated. “See, here is what I wished to avoid.”

“We know about the gambling,” Jemma said, voice echoing in the empty room. “We know about the notes held by various Jewish men in the City, of not insubstantial sums, and we know that they’ve all been paid off now. Did you need money, Mr. Osbourne? You might not have rowed with your father about holy orders, but did you row with him about something else?”

“No.” The answer came so quietly they would have missed it if not for the acoustics.

“Or perhaps there wasn’t a row at all? Perhaps you were merely helping yourself to the contents of the safe and your parents surprised you, so you struck out without meaning to?”

“Jemma.” Fitz peered behind him, hoping the sanctuary boasted another door. Her aim threatened to be too true for his liking.

“No,” Larry said again, not turning around, “I told you, I didn’t speak to my father that night.”

She crossed her arms across her chest, disbelief screaming from every line of her face. Fitz flung out a warning hand she intentionally ignored. “So it was lucky that someone came along to ensure that you got your windfall just in time?”

“ _Jemma_ ,” Fitz said again, grabbing her elbow and pulling her from the pew as Larry rounded on them, face as red as the glass in the windows behind him.

“I haven’t _touched_ that money,” he said, “except to buy coats and shoes for children who didn’t have them. And those notes, as you call them, the debts, if we’re honest—if they were mine I would have found a way to pay them _without_ killing my father or gone to prison instead. But it doesn’t matter, because they were all paid off _before_ Pater died, and you aren’t going to make me betray my sister’s secrets that way.”

Jemma retreated, unable to keep the smugness from the corners of her mouth. Fitz gaped, unable to believe that worked. Larry, either hearing his words echo back to him or seeing them writ large across their faces, closed his eyes painfully and dropped into the pew nearest him. “Drat,” he said.

“Indeed,” Jemma agreed conversationally, leaning her hip against the edge of the pew as casually as though they were discussing the color of the carpet. Fitz marveled at her self-possession. He, personally, felt like mirroring Larry and slumping into a seat. “Which of your sisters are you keeping secrets for, Larry? Daphne, I expect.”

Larry nodded miserably.

“The debts were Daphne’s,” Fitz said slowly. “Gambling debts.”

“Because she gets in with all the wrong crowds and can’t say no to anybody,” Jemma added.

Larry merely groaned a response.

“How much?”

Larry buried his face in his hands. Fitz had to bend over to hear the mumbled amount, which, once he was sure he understood it, did send him reeling into the pew in front of Larry’s. Jemma gulped a little herself, a sure sign that his lightheadedness wasn’t a mere symptom of his Scottish frugality. “Well. That’s certainly. . . yes, I can see why you wouldn’t want that to be general knowledge.”

“It’s all sorted now,” Larry said, sounding strangled. “We paid them all off, and bribed the appropriate people so it will never come out, and got her away from that crowd, at least—though this one isn’t much better, they don’t appear to be after her money. I had hoped it would never have to come out. It hasn’t got anything to do with Pater’s death, anyway—as I said, it was all done and dusted before the party.”

The party, Fitz fought to recall, had been in the middle of July, and Aaron had only said “last July”, so Larry might be telling the truth. He had no reason not to, at least, unless he intentionally meant to throw suspicion on Daphne—but if so, surely he wouldn’t be so adamant that everything had been settled before the murder. “If it’s not your debts,” he said slowly, “and it doesn’t have anything to do with the murder, why did you know we would ask you about them?”

Resignedly, Larry set his jaw, wide brown eyes fixed on the sunny patch of carpet at Jemma’s feet. “Because I’m the one who sorted it. Daphne came to me for help and I gave her what she asked for.”

“Where did you get the money?” Jemma asked. “I can’t believe all this”—she waved a hand in the air—“pays enough to manage a sum of that size.”

Even as the question came from her mouth, the answer came to Fitz’s mind. He snapped his fingers at her, looking to Larry to confirm. “The stocks, wasn’t it? The stolen stocks your mother said weren’t stolen at all.”

His guilty expression said enough. “Did you take them?” Jemma asked incredulously. “That night, or—”

“In a manner of speaking,” Larry said, squirming in his seat. “Not that night. But I may have taken them from the safe without my father’s knowledge.”

“But with your mother’s,” Fitz said. It couldn’t have been anything else. Larry went to his mother for help—whether he told her it was truly for Daphne or not probably didn’t matter—and she gave her favorite child what he asked for: the stocks, in secret.

Larry nodded, meeting Fitz’s eyes for the first time. “I wouldn’t take them without permission. She knew what I needed them for and agreed to give me the combination to the safe. The guvnor didn’t know. He didn’t use that safe often; he liked banks.” His gaze flickered to Jemma as she silently moved towards them, listening intently. “I swear, to the best of my knowledge he never knew they were gone.”

Swearing again, Fitz noticed, despite the scriptural strictures. “Why didn’t you tell him?”

“If he knew I needed them, he wouldn’t have given them to me.”

“But you didn’t,” Fitz said, “so why—”

“And tell him it was Daphne?” Larry shook his head firmly. “Daphne was his favorite, the one child who hadn’t disappointed him. Mother and I didn’t want to do that to him. Poor old Pater, he didn’t deserve that.”

Larry dropped his eyes to his shoes, clearing his throat deliberately. Thank goodness, because Fitz really couldn’t wait a moment more to talk to Jemma. She apparently had the same feeling, instantly meeting his gaze: _Poor old Pater?_

To be sure, everything they had heard of the man made Fitz doubt that assessment. He had no experience with fathers himself, but he suspected good ones didn’t cut you out of their lives merely because they disagreed with your career choices. No doubt Jemma, whose father supported her endeavors no matter where they took her, had even less patience with the deceased. Still, their disinclination to have Stafford Osbourne for a father had no bearing on what Larry—and Daphne, and Iris—felt about it. _Not essential_ , he told her. _What next?_

_Could he still be lying?_

Fitz considered. This new information put paid to their theories, assuming it was accurate. Aaron could confirm that with a bit more digging. In the meantime, say they took Larry’s statement as the actual truth—in that case, neither of the motives ascribed to him would be sufficient to result in his father’s death. An accident might still—but no, what would they be rowing about? And if he was arguing with his father, why bash his mother—his favorite of the two parents—over the head as well? Maybe she wouldn’t keep the secret for him and he meant to kill her as well? Her husband would trump her son, he supposed. And now she simply didn’t remember what had happened. Not impossible. They had already seen evidence enough of his temper. _Maybe. About what?_

Jemma spoke without looking away from Fitz. “Who told the police that the stocks were missing?”

Raising his head, Larry stared blankly. “I don’t know. Iris, I expect; she dealt with the press. I had my hands full with Daphne. Poor girl went into hysterics on the floor when Lady Hermione told us and didn’t stop for an hour at least. And Mater was in no condition.”

“How did she know what was in the safe?”

“We all knew.”

“And the necklace?” Fitz asked. “Did you know about that too?”

Larry roused himself enough to look at Fitz as though he had asked if Larry could recite pi to the fiftieth digit. “Everyone knew about the necklace. Clearly, she was wearing it and then she wasn’t.”

“No, no,” Fitz said, at the same time Jemma explained, “That it was paste.”

“Paste!” Now he looked as though someone had asked him to recite pi to the hundredth digit. “It wasn’t real? How long had that been?”

“Ten years at least, your mother told us,” Jemma said, almost reluctantly. Sympathetic, Fitz wondered, or merely frustrated that line of inquiry remained open?

“Ten years!” Larry got to his feet and paced out into the aisle, mindlessly smoothing down his trousers. “No, I had no idea. I always thought they were real. Iris was to get them when Mother died.”

Jemma’s eyebrows flickered; Fitz understood. “You knew that, but not about your father’s will?”

“Pater’s will?” Larry repeated, increasingly bewildered. “Yes, I know about that. You mean the trusts and things, yes? I knew about that ages ago. When Iris married Budgie. Pater wanted to be sure I knew it wasn’t because he distrusted me.”

“Did you expect it would change at all, after what happened between you?” Jemma asked.

Larry shook his head. “I didn’t think about it. If I did, I wouldn’t expect so. Our estrangement—if you can call it that—that was my doing more than his. I didn’t want to be a reproach to him in any way.” He turned to them, spreading his hands with his palms to the ceiling. “I wish there was something I could say to convince you I didn’t kill him. I’m sorry he’s dead. I was damned—drat, er— _very_ fond of the old man, and I wanted to reconcile with him in time. I pray for him every day.”

Fitz saw nothing but earnestness in Larry’s eyes, a steady honesty and pleading that would not be amiss in the gaze of a particularly nice terrier. He ducked his head, knowing he was two seconds away from absolving Larry of all guilt but equally confident too many questions remained. Larry might profess sorrow at his father’s death, but so had Daphne, and Iris, and Mrs. Osbourne. Mere words didn’t make any of them innocent. Jemma’s cold little finger wrapped around his, offering strength.

“Mr. Osbourne,” she said, “may I ask a difficult question? I know you don’t want to lie, and I don’t want to ask you to.”

“Anything,” he said.

She pursed her lips together a little, clearly searching for the best words. “Do you have any idea who killed your father?”

“No.”

The answer came sure and strong. A little taken aback, Jemma repeated it. “No?”

“No,” he said again. “I’ve thought a good deal about it, about all the things I know about my family—I know it’s motive, isn’t it? We all had opportunity, even you—”

“Yes,” Fitz acknowledged.

Larry nodded and continued. “We had rows; we needed money; no one is above suspicion, I expect, except Mater. But I can’t imagine any of us deciding it would be worth killing the old man. You can’t know. He sounds terrible, but he wasn’t really, he was kind and generous and a good word from him was worth more than his entire estate, even after death duties.”

“Then why did you and Iris go against him?” Fitz asked, almost in spite of himself.

Larry shrugged, jamming his hands in his pockets with a kind smile. “We found something that was more important to us than his good opinion, I suppose. My Father in heaven trumps my father on earth.” Then, screwing up his face, he added, “Honestly, I’m not sure why Iris felt Budgie was worth it, but that’s _l’amore_. And to do him justice, he seems to feel the same about her. He’s had his share of problems, but he keeps them discrete and manageable for her sake. That’s why I was so surprised by his behavior at the show. He must be in quite a jam if he made that kind of scene.”

“Or Iris wasn’t keeping a close eye on him,” Jemma suggested.

Shaking his head, Larry sighed. “Poor girl. All this wears on her so bally much. But it’s awfully rotten, isn’t it? If God hadn’t pulled me by the collar from certain death all those months ago I don’t know how I’d manage it. Speaking of—” Pulling one hand from his pocket, he consulted his watch. “I’m afraid I must go—choir practice, don’t you know. But now you know the worst, if you have any questions you can come see me at any time. I can’t say I’ll be happy to answer them, but I will do so to the best of my ability. If you’ll excuse me?”

And he walked past them back down the aisle towards the altar, crossing himself as he passed it and disappeared into a door to the side. Two more fingers twined into his hand as they watched the door close with a weighty _clunk_. “I believe him, Fitz.”

“I do too.”

“But not because he’s a curate. Clergy isn’t exempt from lying.”

“Agreed.”

Jemma canted her head, staring at the door. “The difficulty is that I believe Iris, too, and Daphne as far as she’s told us anything. It’s odd to me that three such different people have the same feeling about a man who seems, to me, to treat them poorly.”

“Sylvia too,” he reminded her, and she nodded thoughtfully.

“Those three—Larry, Iris, and Sylvia—have something they cared about more, but I don’t see how the Church or science would cause one to drive a poker into someone’s skull. I’m less certain about Iris. If Budgie—well, I can see how Iris might—”

“I know,” he said.

_Thank you, sweetheart._ “I suppose there’s still Daphne. We’ll want to confirm Larry’s story, of course, but she’s the only one we don’t know about.”

“Will-the-wisp Daffy?” He snorted, taking their twined fingers and tucking her hand into the crook of his arm. “It could be nothing. It could be anything. We ought to say a prayer for ourselves.”

“It may come to that,” she agreed with a sigh.

Making their way outside, they came to a halt in the church yard while Fitz checked the time. “Only a half-hour,” he said, marveling. “I’m exhausted. Thank God I finished up my work. You coming home too?”

“Yes.” She nodded. “I’ve got some work to do, but we don’t have to go back to the office. Fitz, do you think we ought to ring Daphne? She’s the only one we haven’t really spoken to about what happened. And now we know this—” She stopped her sentence when she saw his unspoken agreement. “When could you meet? I know—” She stopped, pressing her lips together. “At least, Sylvia said her department head has a meeting with you tomorrow morning.”

“That’s true.” A wave of guilt rose up to meet him. “I’m sorry I forgot to tell you—it was meant to be this morning, but I had to change it when I found out about that project for Whitehall. I know Thursday’s supposed to be our day—”

Her hand slipped from his elbow and she shoved it into her own pocket, hunching up her shoulders as she moved towards the street. “No, Fitz, it was a silly idea. You’re so busy, we can’t possibly keep a day free—”

“It was not.” He chased after her, his shoes slipping a little against the packed dirt of the church yard as he reached to grasp her elbow. “Jemma. Jemma, it was a good idea.” Finally catching up, he turned her to face him, waiting until she reluctantly met his eyes before speaking again. “I think we should try. We’ve had a bad start, because things keep happening to spoil it, but it’s a good idea. I’ve got the afternoon free still. We could speak with Daphne then. And I’ll tell Andrews nothing at all next week on pain of his employment. Maybe we’ll go out of London that day, yeah? Motor out to see your parents?”

“Not exactly what I had in mind,” she murmured, but he caught the upward tick at the corner of her mouth and felt relieved.

“Bad idea,” he agreed. “But something. I promise.”

Her lips curved upwards as she tsked at him, moving backwards towards their waiting cab and letting her arm slide through his hand until their fingers met. He followed obediently, crooking his fingers around her thin ones to keep them connected. Smile aside, her eyes hadn’t yet regained the lightheartedness her next words implied: “No supernumerary promises, remember, Fitz? You’d hate to promise and have something happen.”

“It won’t,” he swore as they came up to the cab. “I’ll cancel my appointments if necessary, and we don’t have to do anything to do with anyone by the name of Osbourne if we don’t want to. What else could stop us?”

She gazed thoughtfully into the street, ignoring the door he held open for her. “I wonder.” Then, sweeping her thumb over the back of his hand, she let her smile finally reach her eyes and got into the cab, flouncing a little to keep her skirt straight. Fitz slid in after her, flicking the corner of her skirt over their still clasped hands to protect them from the cabbie’s gaze. They kept them there the whole ride home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And now we finally know the reason for the infamous row!
> 
> With that, some sad news (sad for you, not for me): for the next two Mondays, I will be on vacation in the land of our beloved science babies and can thus not promise an update at the usual time. I may have to miss entirely, I may have to post on a different day—I'm not exactly sure how it's going to work. However, I will have plenty of plane and train time so I will be writing my fingers to the bone and this story to its conclusion. I'll see you when I get back, if not before!


	23. Hysterical Women

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I couldn't stay away from you all anymore. The stuff I'm writing on trains and buses is so exciting I just had to post another chapter so you can see the new stuff sooner—self-indulgent, I know, but true all the same. It's my Monday, at least!
> 
> In case you've forgotten, our erstwhile heroes have just left Curate Larry Osbourne, who has been singularly unhelpful—except for his information that the debts of honor they've been hearing so much about were Daphne's. Meanwhile, Sylvia and Jemma have agreed to take everything they know about Charles and his group to the police as soon as they both have available time.

Jemma went to the phone without taking off her hat, clearly wanting to settle the whole business as quickly as possible. Waving Lane off, Fitz removed his outer garments and then tapped Jemma, unpeeling her from her coat and unpinning her hat as she waited for the exchange to connect. His things went straight to the cloakroom, as did her coat, but her hat belonged upstairs in the room next to his where she kept her clothes, nestled into its own hatbox. Having deposited it safely, he surveyed the room with his hands on his hips. They had arranged it as her bedroom, in keeping with tradition, but since she had never to his knowledge used the bed for its intended purpose he couldn’t help but suspect they could use it better another way. Perhaps an upstairs study? Or they could start a library dedicated solely to science reference materials—goodness knows it was tedious to have to be constantly running downstairs in various states of undress to find the answer to a question. At least until they needed it for someone else’s occupancy.

Whistling as he went back down the stairs, he was pleased to see Jemma’s finger depressing the lever to terminate the call. “Simmons,” he said, skipping the last two steps entirely, “what would you say if we turned your bedroom into a library? Never have to worry about coming across Lane in your chemise again, that way.”

“Something to avoid, certainly,” she said, frowning at the receiver as she set it on the hall table rather than its hook. “Fitz, that was rather odd.”

He came up beside her and put his arm about her waist. “Not the word I would choose, if it happened to me, but—”

“Ugh, Fitz.” Rolling her eyes, she turned in his embrace and toyed with his lapels. “Not Lane. I would prefer to avoid a repetition of that situation at all costs and yes, I would love an upstairs library. I meant my phone call was odd.”

“Did you not reach Daphne?”

“Yes, and she’s agreed to meet with us tomorrow afternoon. Because, Fitz, she says she has something enormously important to tell us.” His eyebrows drew together. She nodded, seeing her confusion reflected on his face. “Precisely. If she has something important to tell us, why has she not done so before?”

“Maybe she only just remembered it?” he suggested.

“Or she didn’t know it was important before?”

“Or perhaps it has to do with Larry and she knows we’ve spoken to him now?”

“He would have had to ring her directly we left,” she said, “so perhaps choir practice wasn’t quite as imminent as he led us to believe.”

“But what could it be? He’s told us about her debts; we know about his work; she doesn’t know what the row was about. Perhaps she knew something he told us she didn’t?”

Jemma threw one hand to the ceiling. “Or perhaps it has nothing to do with the murder at all, and she’s decided to try her hand at scientific inquiry and needs our advice.”

“It’s difficult to tell with her,” he agreed. “We won’t be able to sort it now, anyway. I say we put it out of our minds until necessary.”

“That won’t be difficult. I have enough else to be thinking about without trying to make sense of the odd behavior of Daphne Osbourne.”

“Isn’t that the truth.” Kissing her temple, he released her and gestured towards the study. “Want to sort our books to see which ones we need upstairs?”

He moved without waiting for an answer, expecting her to follow—she did, of course, for the twined reasons of never wanting to be apart from him if she had a choice and her not-insignificant interest in the project at hand. Still, she wasn’t sure whether to be glad or sorry that he hadn’t asked her what she had to be thinking about. He had made a habit of doing so from early days of their relationship, earnestly interested in what she said no matter how trivial or theoretical; his fascination with the workings of her mind always left her with a curious warmth about her heart and the certain knowledge that she had found a jewel among men. His indifference now would wound her, were it not that she could not tell him the thoughts looping around her head like racehorses around a track. Not trusting herself to even obliquely reference explosives or the political situation or Sylvia, she swallowed back the dread threatening to creep up her throat and threw herself into the task at hand. Less than a day, she told herself as she strenuously argued for the inclusion of _Origin of the Species_ , and it would no longer be her problem to bear.

She said as much to Sylvia the next morning as they walked up the steps of Scotland Yard. “How lucky for you,” Sylvia said, her lips tight and her hands busy. “How glad you must be to never have to think about it again.”

Jemma stopped, guilt falling across her shoulders and covering the relief she had worn all morning. “Sylvia, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”

“I know you didn’t. It’s not your fault.”

Staring up at the building, Sylvia seemed to have the gallows on her face. She had looked that way all the way from MI, as silent and grim as if she was the guilty one. Jemma’s arguments that they had no choice but to inform the proper authorities, as was their duty, had no effect; she nodded and agreed and grew paler with every passing moment. With difficulty, Jemma reminded herself yet again that Sylvia had an infinitely more complicated position in this scenario. She, Jemma, might believe that Mark Jones deserved whatever came to him, and Sylvia might intellectually assent to both that and the necessity to take action, but intellectual agreement couldn’t wipe out five years of emotional attachment. Thank God, Jemma thought, that she wasn’t in Sylvia’s shoes. She might not have been able to be so noble.

Offering her friend a grateful, sympathetic smile, she indicated the way forward. “You know, Sylvia, you don’t have to come with me. I can tell them myself if you like.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” Sylvia scoffed and set her jaw. “You haven’t actually heard any of the discussion about the potential threats; your information is the same as if you stood at Speaker’s Corner on Sunday. If it comes to it, you don’t have to come in.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she retorted, “I have the connection to the Chief Inspector; you need me to be heard by the right people.”

They had had this argument several times already, and they both knew the inevitable conclusion. Skipping directly there, Sylvia dropped her eyes from the bobby stationed at the door and shrugged. “So. Why waste time loitering on the pavement?” Settling her hat more firmly on her head, she tucked her pocketbook under her arm and let her hands drop to her sides. “Anyway, I’ll catch it if I’m back late.”

“Sylvia,” Jemma said, perfectly seriously, “you are one of the bravest people I know.”

“I have to have something to balance out my foolishness,” Sylvia said, and plunged into the building without a backwards glance.

They used up nearly a half hour of Sylvia’s precious lunch simply navigating through the layers upon layers of helpful clerks and busy bobbies—she should have expected that, really, since Scotland Yard was part of Whitehall and she could nearly recite Fitz’s complaints about Whitehall’s needless hierarchies along with him. With judicious deployment of her father’s name, however, Jemma managed to steer them to the Chief Inspector’s office with just enough time to tell their story and return Sylvia to MI without her department head being any the wiser. Now turning her wiles to the unsuspecting secretary, she attempted another coup. “Please, it will only take a few minutes. It’s terribly important.”

“You may tell me,” the secretary said staunchly, “the Chief Inspector is not a desk sergeant.”

“Of course not,” Jemma said, “I have the utmost respect for his time—for the time of all policemen, actually—and would never insist on seeing him were it not that the issue is one of great importance and delicacy.”

“I have every confidence you believe it is,” the man said.

She did not think she imagined the slight emphasis on _believe_. Rotten man, he probably thought they were here about a poached housemaid or a missing Pekingese. “I’m not given to allotting more weight to a thing than it deserves. My father said—”

“Yes, your father Sir Robert Simmons, I understand. But ma’am, _you_ aren’t understanding—”

“Stop.”

All three of them turned to look at the door, which had opened enough to reveal the head and shoulders of a mild-faced man who looked as though he couldn’t decide whether to be amused or annoyed. “If you had let them in ten minutes ago, Milton,” he said, “it would have wasted less time. I certainly couldn’t get any work done in all this wrangle. Ladies, my apologies. I can offer you ten minutes and a cup of tea?”

“All we ask,” Jemma said, stifling her sigh of relief.

Holding the door further open, the Chief Inspector ushered them into his office and pulled two heavy leather chairs to face his desk. Jemma sat, observing the heavy tome marked _Systematic Theology_ on the desk with interest and Sylvia’s wan face with no small concern, and accepted the tea gratefully. “We apologize for taking up your time,” she said, knowing the responsibility for beginning fell to her, “if it wasn’t so important—”

He held up a hand, not unkindly. “I heard. No need to repeat it. Why don’t you tell me what the problem seems to be?”

Jemma stirred her tea, mustered her courage, and said aloud the sentence she had been practicing for the last two days: “We have information regarding a group of people who wish to bring down the British government by violent means and may, additionally, be smuggling dangerous chemicals out of the country.”

She didn’t know what she had expected—not histrionics, as the Chief Inspector no doubt had to have nerves of steel in his line of work—but whatever she anticipated, she was sorely disappointed. He merely reclined slightly, stirring his own cup without so much as a flicker of his eyebrow. “What leads you to this conclusion?”

Glancing at Sylvia, Jemma circled her hand in an encouragement to take up the tale. It was Sylvia’s story, anyway. With a shuddering breath, Sylvia stared into her teacup, turning it round and round in the saucer without ever lifting it to her lips. The Chief Inspector waited patiently. Jemma, watching the second hand of her watch tick forward, waited less so.

Finally, Sylvia raised her eyes to meet the kind, questioning eyes of the policeman. “Someone I know invited me to attend a gathering of his friends.”

“Where?”

“Somewhere in Golders Green. I can’t say more than that.”

“It’s within ten minutes of the synagogue,” Jemma added, “but we’ve only ever been there in the dark, so we aren’t sure.”

The Chief Inspector wrote it down. “Do you know who these friends are? Have you met them before?”

Sylvia shook her head. “I might be able to recognize them, but I don’t know their names. Except their leader is called Charles and his second-in-command is called Sansfoy.”

That did receive a reaction, though a curious one: “Oh, Peter would be extremely amused by that,” he said, and did not elaborate despite their questioning looks. “And your friend?”

Sylvia set her jaw. “I’d rather not say. He’s a very small fish in this pond, anyway.”

“Very well.” Making another note, the Chief Inspector clasped his hands over his pen and leaned forward. “Please continue.”

“One one of our visits,” Sylvia said, “I overheard Sansfoy and some of the other members of the club discussing several chemicals. I’m a biologist, so I recognized the names but didn’t know anything about them, and I went to Mrs. Fitz-Simmons, who would know in her capacity as a biochemist.”

“And did you?” the Chief Inspector asked her.

She nodded. “By themselves, most of the chemicals are harmless, even inert. In combination, however, they create TNT. That’s the stuff in—”

“Bombs, yes, thank you. A discussion of dangerous chemicals isn’t a proof of either guilt or smuggling, though—if it was, I’d have to arrest you both.”

Sylvia shot a triumphant glance at Jemma from the corner of her eye. “So I thought. We then returned to the club, or whatever it is, in an attempt to gain more information. While there, I overheard other people discussing the same topic, only this time they were speaking about where to acquire the chemicals and the difficulty of storing them.”

“Perhaps they’re chemists as well,” he suggested. “Talking shop, you know, as people do at parties and such. Mrs. Fitz-Simmons, perhaps you can answer if this is a common topic among your counterparts?”

“The acquisition and storing of dangerous chemicals?”

“Chemicals in general,” he said mildly. “You did say they were harmless by themselves?”

“Well, yes, but—” To her dismay, he scribbled something on his pad, seeming to take her words a way she hadn’t meant them. Moving to the edge of her chair, she corrected herself quickly: “That is, yes, they’re harmless by themselves, but no, it’s not a common topic of discussion. Most of us work in labs that provide the materials we need, and chemists—I mean, chemist shop chemists—don’t have anything to do with toluene. What Sylvia heard was unusual.”

“Ah. But not necessarily nefarious, am I correct?”

Sylvia’s teacup resumed its circuitous journey, scraping and squeaking as it turned in the saucer. Cold concern crept up Jemma’s back. The Chief Inspector’s even, steady gaze revealed nothing more than tolerant interest, but the tenor of his questions betrayed something else: he didn’t believe them. Jemma clutched at the arm of the chair with one hand, willing herself not to leap to conclusions; perhaps he was merely cautious, wanting to be certain of the facts before acting. She couldn’t fault him for that. If she hadn’t been there herself and felt the hatred trickling down the walls and rising from the crowd, she might not believe it either. “In itself,” she said, “no, not nefarious. That’s why we said it was only possible they were smuggling. But they certainly _do_ have some sort of plot against the government, which is the really serious problem.”

He tented his fingers together, resting their tips just under his nose. “And how do you know that?”

Together, slowly at first but then growing in strength and conviction, she and Sylvia explained everything they had heard Charles say: in generalities, in specific phrases that refused to be shaken loose from their memories, in the description of their almost physical reactions to the poison that flowed from his tongue. Sylvia gave the gist of the speech she had heard when she visited without Jemma; Jemma recited, nearly word-for-word, her conversation with Charles. The Chief Inspector remained impassive. Aside from the intermittent scratch of his pen against the paper, he made no noise. When they came to an end, he nodded twice—once for each of them—and looked down at his notes.

“One question, if I may, and then I’m afraid I must be going.”

Jemma couldn’t see how one question would be enough, but she said “of course” as Sylvia nodded agreement.

“Has either of you ever heard, directly and in no uncertain terms, what Charles’s grand plot against the government is?”

He sat back in his chair, outwardly expectant, but he knew, and Jemma knew that he knew, that their answer could only be the negative. If they had concrete information, certainly they would have told him so at the very beginning. Without looking, Jemma knew Sylvia had abandoned her teacup to methodically pull her gloves off one finger at a time before yanking them back down at the wrist and beginning the process over again, her eyes fixed on her lap and impossibly dull. Jemma called up her very last reserves and bestowed a warm smile on the Chief Inspector. Her father had said this was the best man to speak to; surely he wouldn’t just dismiss them out of hand. “I’m afraid not. He doesn’t appear to speak about it at large, believing not everybody can be trusted with all the information. I’m certain someone must know, though.”

He did not return her smile. “Or Charles is merely another of those fiery young men with grand ideas and no follow-through, basking in the adoration of however many poor fools he can wrap around his finger. There isn’t anything in what you’ve told me to suggest more than that.”

Sylvia stiffened, her hands clenching together. A rock suddenly appeared in Jemma’s stomach. All that for nothing—despite the Chief Inspector’s kindness, he didn’t believe them anymore than the desk sergeant or the secretary. There would be no help from the police. “But,” she began desperately, “surely you could inquire—we’d be happy to take you there as best we can—haven’t you got someone you could send in undercover with us?”

He pushed to his feet and they mimicked him thoughtlessly, facing him across the desk with disbelief still clear across their faces. “Mrs. Fitz-Simmons, I know you have successfully brought a case to fruition in the past and I make it a habit not to doubt amateur detectives. I must caution you, though, to leave inquiries up to the professionals. Whether or not these people are as dangerous as you suspect, it does not sound like a situation two ladies such as yourself belong in. Will you take my advice in the spirit it is meant and stay away from them?”

“Will you follow our advice and investigate?” Jemma shot back, her natural respect for law enforcement chopped down with a hatchet of indignation.

“I will do,” he said, “as I see fit. Thank you, ladies. Would you like someone to escort you out?”

Jemma spoke through her teeth, her pleasant smile a farce. “Thank you for your time, sir. We can find our own way.”

And they did, despite the fact that Jemma could scarcely see for how hard she was thinking; Sylvia had to keep her from running bodily into people more than once. Her ingrained desire to avoid scenes kept her silent until they reached her lab and locked the door behind them. As soon as the tumblers fell into place, Sylvia sat shakily on the nearest high stool. “They aren’t going to do anything, are they?”

Jemma wrapped her hands around her neck, fighting back her desire to bury her face in them and not look up for a week at least. “I don’t think so.”

“I suppose I understand—if you only say it, it doesn’t sound as dreadful as it was. We know, because we were there and saw it, but—”

“No, Sylvia, stop.” Slumping against the door, Jemma shook her head. “They ought to at least make inquiries. They think we’re making a mountain of a molehill, that we’re frightened for no reason, merely because we’re women—if I had Fitz with me, they would have better believed us. Please don’t make excuses.”

Sylvia picked up a long glass pipette from its box and flipped it back and forth between her fingers, watching closely to make sure it didn’t go to smash, staring at it as though it could provide answers. “Whatever the reasons for the results, we have to accept them as they are.”

“I agree, so we simply need better information. I’ve been thinking all the way back—Charles said I could be useful to the cause. If I can convince him that I’ve decided to join them, perhaps he’ll entrust me with more—”

Sylvia began shaking her head before Jemma’s idea had completely escaped, her jaw set like stone. “Jemma, no. It’s too dangerous. You mustn’t.”

“I _must_ ,” she insisted, “or they’ll never take us seriously. I couldn’t live with the weight on my conscience if something happened and I hadn’t tried everything in my power to prevent it.”

“Jemma, think what you’re saying! You’re suggesting that you intentionally attempt to enter Charles’s inner circle, which would be bad enough if you agreed with him and is sheer idiocy since you’re attempting to spy. What if he found you out? Have you considered that?”

“He won’t. I’ll be careful, and he’s too myopic to see anything beyond his own interests.”

“And you don’t think that stopping someone from threatening his plans is in his interests? Isn’t that why you kept this whole thing from Fitz to begin?”

Jemma matched Sylvia’s firmness, standing straight and not flinching. “That’s different. Charles isn’t threatened by me, and he is by Fitz.”

Throwing up her hands, Sylvia leapt off the stool and stalked towards the door. “You were the one who felt we should put it all in the hands of the police! Why are you not content with that now?”

“Because we tried and failed. I wanted to go to the police because they had better capabilities, but if they refuse to act the responsibility falls back on us. It’s only reasonable. How have we exchanged positions? You _insisted_ on doing it ourselves before.”

Sylvia sucked in a slow breath, gripping the doorknob with white-edged fingers. “I didn’t understand the threat before, Jemma. I’m not brave at all, actually; I’m terribly, terribly frightened of what Charles might do, and my altruism isn’t strong enough to overcome my fear. I’ve already lost Mark to these people. I can’t bear to lose you as well.”

Jemma’s resolve deserted her entirely as the matter-of-fact sorrow in Sylvia’s voice made her slump unsteadily against the counter, at once troubled and touched. She hadn’t known that their relationship meant so much to Sylvia, but then, who else did Sylvia have? And she was correct—Jemma’s plan presented any number of dangers, with the potential of very few results to compensate. Once again, she found herself weighing the risk to an unknown, unnumbered population with risk to herself or, more accurately, those she cared for. Staying away would be infinitely the better thing for Fitz and, it appeared, for Sylvia, but to willfully ignore the danger that now loomed on their own shores? How could she? Uncertain of the answer, she began slowly, unable to look at her friend. “Sylvia, I—”

“At least, not yet. Give me time, and I may be a better person.” Then she wrenched open the door and hurried out, not waiting for a response. Jemma didn’t move, either, staring blankly into twin futures resulting from an impossible decision.

“Jemma?”

She blinked back into existence to find Fitz in the doorway, hat in hand and a concerned expression writ large across his face. “Are you all right?” he asked, making concrete the implied question, “I ran into Sylvia in the lift and she looked like she might cry, and now you look—”

“It’s fine, Fitz,” she said quickly. “It’s something to do with Mark; I’m just trying to think how best to help.”

“Jilt him on her behalf?”

One corner of his mouth tilted upward in a jest, but the other quivered uncertainly. Suspiciously, Jemma thought, though that might be her own guilt. She was very tired of falsehoods, even if they weren’t quite lies. “If only. Ready for Daphne?”

“As ready as I’ll ever be.” He offered his arm, clapping his hat on his head as she came to take it. “Actually, I’ve been thinking about what her important information is all morning. The biology department is doing good work, but its head makes me want to throw my paperweight at the wall. Daphne’s been the only thing keeping me sane.”

“An irony if I ever heard one.”

Now he mentioned it, she couldn’t stop thinking about it either. Information about Budgie? Had Daphne noticed someone sneaking down the stairs while she showed off her awful vase? Heard her father discuss a death threat? The possibilities, really, staggered the imagination.

 

* * *

 

 

“I believe my mother is having an affair.”

Fitz’s face went blank as a sheet of paper, and Jemma felt distinctly lightheaded. “What?”

“An affair.” Daphne nodded somberly, looking over her shoulder even though her chosen rendezvous was a stuffy Oriental teahouse with drapes everywhere and absolutely no chance of seeing anyone even if they stood a foot away. Leaning in, she lowered her voice. “Her behavior has been so strange lately. I don’t know how to explain it otherwise.”

“Explain what?” Jemma asked, Fitz still being too startled to do so.

Daphne brushed her hair over her shoulders. “She’s so quiet and subdued, as though she’s given up on life, always staring out her window at the park across the street.”

“It’s a lovely park,” Jemma said, “and being quiet doesn’t seem—”

“Except”—Daphne raised a finger—“for when the mail and the papers come. She pours over the papers, every line—none of the rest of us can find more than a page together once she’s done.”

“That sounds like an interest in life to me—surely that’s a good sign. If she only read death notices, perhaps you’d have reason for concern, but—”

“I’m sure she’s watching for something, whether a letter or the agony column or signals from the park.”

So much for anything useful. Stifling a sigh, Jemma attempted a kind smile but knew it likely looked more patronizing than anything else. “That’s awfully like a thriller, isn’t it? I don’t believe affairs have to be quite so clandestine nowadays.”

“Anyway,” Fitz said suddenly, taking a sip of tea that seemed to fuel his mental engine, “it wouldn’t really be an affair, would it? She isn’t married at present. Unless you suspect she had this. . . entanglement. . .before your father was killed?”

For a second, Jemma thought Daphne might slap him. “My mother was—”

Fitz finished the sentence quickly, holding up conciliatory hands. “Devoted to your father, we know. That’s the only thing everyone’s agreed on in this entire investigation. So if she didn’t know this hypothetical man before your father died and she’s hardly left the house since, when would she have time to become involved with anyone?”

“It’s true,” Jemma nodded, “truly, Daphne, nothing you’ve said is so very damning. I don’t believe you have anything to worry about.”

She crossed her arms and flounced back against the seat, lips pushed forward in a petulant moue. Honestly, Jemma thought, and this woman was the same age as she and Fitz? “I know I’m right and no one believes me. Iris pooh-poohs, and Larry’s just kind—I heard you went to see him, by the way.”

“We did,” Fitz said carefully. “He was the last one we hadn’t spoken to. It seemed important.”

“He says. . .” She avoided their eyes, casting quick glances up through her eyelashes when she thought they weren’t looking. “He says he told you about my little financial scrape.”

“Yes,” Jemma said. “He didn’t want to, but we rather strong-armed him into it, I’m afraid. He cares for you a good deal.”

Something sparkled on Daphne’s cheek. “He does. I don’t deserve him, and he’s always been this way to me, and more now that he’s got religion. Not a bit of disappointment, even when he heard how much I had lost—well, it’s so easy, isn’t it, when everyone’s throwing down IOUs? I don’t know what I would have done without him. Been thrown in gaol, I expect, which would have killed Dad and made everyone talk and been entirely rotten.”

“Gaol tends to be that way, I understand,” Fitz said.

“It’s all true, then?”

Daphne nodded tearfully. “Exactly as he said, I’m sure. Larry doesn’t tell falsehoods. Certainly not anymore.”

“Yes, we wanted to speak to you about that.” Fitz leaned forwards, letting his hands hang between his knees. “Why did no one just tell us that he’s a, um—”

“Curate,” Jemma supplied.

He bumped his knee against hers gratefully. “It isn’t a secret, is it? Anyone walking into the church will know it’s him.”

“Yes, but people don’t go there.” Daphne frowned, brushing off the entire population of the East End with one lazy sentence. “No, I don’t suppose it’s a secret exactly, but Mother and Iris don’t like to talk about it. It’s not quite quite, you know, to be so—well, I don’t really know what to call it.”

“Pietistic?” Jemma suggested.

“No. . .” Daphne screwed up her face. “So religious. Go to church by all means, at holidays and for weddings and so on, but to be so _involved_. That’s what Iris thinks, at least. Mother doesn’t say much about it. I don’t know if she agrees with Dad and doesn’t want to go against Larry, or if she agrees with Larry and doesn’t want to go against Dad.”

Fitz took another swig of tea. “Which is more likely?”

“Dad, I expect. I never knew her to disagree with him.”

“Never disagree, or never say?”

Daphne’s mouth fell open a bit as she looked between them before shrugging again. “Isn’t it the same?”

Fitz’s hand landed on Jemma’s leg warningly, and she checked the quick denial that wanted to fly from her mouth. Instead, she redirected the flow of conversation: “If your father was so against it, how did Larry manage to pay for training and so on?”

“How does he ever?”

They waited expectantly, but that appeared to be all she had to say on the matter. Astonishing—she really had no interest in the grubby necessities of living in the world. Jemma rolled her eyes inwardly, looking to Fitz to share her annoyance, and found him looking back with eloquent eyes: _We know how he pays for things_.

Of course! His mother. If Mrs. Osbourne would bail out Daphne behind her husband’s back, what wouldn’t she do for her favorite child—particularly if doing so secretly could keep the peace? But then, why not refuse to fund the enterprise entirely? Larry wouldn’t make a fuss and the entire thing might blow itself out. Something to consider.

“Well, I expect it was a comfort to your mother, at least,” Fitz said. “If my mother hadn’t had her faith after my father died I don’t know what would have come of her.”

“I suppose. Or perhaps she’s found someone else to bring her comfort.” Daphne tossed her bracelets and her head, clearly ignoring even their silent disagreement. “What did you think of my show? Wasn’t it exciting? I mean the art, of course, not the row, though that was thrilling too.”

“It was certainly interesting.” Jemma blessed the all-inclusive nature of the word. “We wondered why you decided on that subject, though. We thought you’d want to be rid of thinking about it.”

“Because art is pain, of course. Or any strong feeling, really, but I had nightmares about Dad lying there in his blood—I kept imagining it, how he must have looked, the streaks of red down the walls and on the carpet—I thought by painting it I might be able to stop dreaming about it.”

As she spoke, the bright excitement faded from her eyes, bringing down her light until the curtain of her eyelashes met her cheeks as she stared into her teacup. A bolt of sympathy shot through Jemma, who certainly understood being haunted by violent dreams—she hadn’t even seen all the bodies that met her in her sleep. If only she could tell Daphne they would fade in time. If only she could be sure they would.

Beside her, Fitz cleared his throat. “We really are trying everything we know to find who killed him, Miss Osbourne. Only it’s difficult, because every lead we have gets ruthlessly stamped out one way or another.”

“Or it ends in an interrogative mark,” Jemma added, thinking of all the _perhaps_ still unanswered.

“If we had any more information, we might be better off, but—”

“I know,” Daphne said. “I’ve tried again and again to think of something more to tell you, but I can’t be sure—people were milling about everywhere at that party, it could have been anyone. Our butler saw people come in, but he doesn’t remember who left, and I was in the room just across from the stairs but I didn’t see anyone come down.” Her voice grew even quieter, until Jemma had to lean in to distinguish the words. “Sometimes in my dreams, I see them, though. Iris, or myself, or sometimes Mother. Which is ridiculous, of course, because she was upstairs the entire time! But they’re just dreams. Once I saw Ann on the stairs, too, and she wasn’t there at all.”

Jemma’s sympathetic smile held no trace of superiority this time; they were simply two girls with nightmares. “Dreams are funny that way. They seem like they make sense, but they really don’t.”

“Oh, I know.” Daphne sat back so quickly Jemma pulled back too, a little startled by the rapid shift in mood. “It’s all in Freud, isn’t it? So fascinating. I’m thinking of reading it to interpret my dreams, since I know a little German. It shouldn’t be so very difficult, should it?”

“Well—” Fitz began, but Jemma put a warning hand on his knee to forestall the lecture.

“Fascinating, indeed. I’m sure you’ll enjoy it.”

Although they spent another quarter of an hour trying every trick they could imagine to pull more information from Daphne, she neatly sidestepped all their attempts to discuss the matter and drove the conversation through an extensive course of rabbit trails. Either, Jemma thought, she refused to allow herself to dwell on the matter, or she truly knew nothing. Which was more likely, she couldn’t say. Fitz grew increasingly glazed over the course of tea, visibly biting back his irritation at Daphne’s circuitous and vapid conversation, and busied himself eating every biscuit on the plate so they would have no excuse to linger. The instant the last of them disappeared, he stood, made their apologies, and steered them out with firm hand.

“Well, that was useless,” he grumbled as he shoved aside a baboon of a man to find a seat for her in their train car. “Now we know Larry’s telling the truth, which we guessed anyway, and a great deal of nonsense about the popular understanding of Freud. What a waste of an afternoon. The tea wasn’t even good.”

Even she couldn’t deny his assessment, so instead she attempted to put it behind them. “What do we do now, Fitz? The motives don’t align with the opportunities; every path we take disappears into the unknown but possible. Perhaps Aaron will dig something new up? Perhaps the necklace will suddenly appear? But we can’t count on those things happening.”

Gripping the handhold, he stared pensively over her head. “Maybe we’ve had the wrong end of the stick all this time, Simmons.”

“What do you mean?”

“Only, we believed Daphne when she said that the police weren’t doing anything. Perhaps it’s not that at all. We don’t have all the information they do, of course, but what we do have is inconclusive, nothing either of us would feel comfortable accusing someone on. A jury would have to be severely biased to convict anyone, at least. What if the police _can’t_ do anything?”

He had no way to know the myriad meanings his words had, but she found herself glad regardless that he couldn’t easily meet her eyes. Could the police do anything? Perhaps not in the Osbournes’ case, but she and Sylvia offered ample evidence to at least begin inquiries. The Chief Inspector’s nonchalance did not inspire confidence that there would be enough steps taken to bring that investigation to this point. Which meant, of course, that she remained on the horns of her dilemma: whose safety and happiness, whose _best_ , would she prioritize?

Glancing up at Fitz, she remembered something she had wanted to tell him in the midst of their conversation with Daphne. “Fitz.”

He looked down at her, eyebrow quirked into a question.

“I wanted to say.” She took his hand and stared at it, ignoring the smooth leather of his glove to picture his careful fingers, his bitten cuticles, the callouses on his index and thumb. “I don’t mean to suggest your mother’s faith isn’t important to her, because of course it is, but I think, really, it wasn’t the only thing that saved her after your father was killed.”

The question turned warmer, more confused.

“She had you,” she continued, “She would never curl up and die when you needed her.”

The corner of his mouth turned up, and he squeezed her fingers in lieu of holding eye contact. “Do you know, all those rotten years at school, I only managed to bear it for her sake? Every time I wanted to get myself expelled I knew I mustn’t because I could never help her if I didn’t succeed.”

“Of course you did. You learned how to care for people from her, and now we both reap the benefits.”

He looked at her then, his eyes sharp and determined and deep, oh, deeper than the soundings of the oceans. “You do know, don’t you, Jemma? That I would do anything—”

Aware of the strange looks from the baboon beside them, she cut him off, darting a quick kiss to his thumb to ease the sting: “I know, Fitz.”

“Well, good. I’m glad.”

And then he appeared content to leave it, falling into the customary silence of public transportation journeys. But the knowledge swelled her heart and swept through her mind, leaving confusion and conviction in its wake. Of course, she would do anything too. Only, how did one know what the best thing was?


	24. A Fragile Peace

Upon further consideration, Jemma realized she actually could do nothing without Sylvia’s agreement. She might, with a bit of luck, be able to find the secret meeting place, but she knew none of the passwords—which had changed every time—nor when the meetings were held. Nor did she have a way to find out. There were a hundred Mark Jones in the telephone book, assuming he even had a phone; she could hardly ring them all up and say “please invite me to the next secret gathering of your inimically dangerous cronies.” Whatever decision she made remained academic until Sylvia decided to act. So Jemma made no decision at all, pushing the issue as far from her mind as she could and concentrating her attention on more concrete matters. In addition to the project of the new upstairs library, the appointment with a paper-hanger her husband had shamefacedly brought around over the weekend, and her ordinary work in the lab, the actual, not imagined, political situation provided plenty to fret over. She and Fitz arrived home from their interview with Daphne to the news that Chamberlain had flown back to Germany, meeting with Hitler to discuss the morning’s news that the Czech government had resigned. As Fitz growled and gloomed over the papers, Jemma breathed a sigh of relief. If the PM didn’t treat with Germany after all, perhaps Charles’s merry band of terrorists would grant England a reprieve. On Friday, vague reports filtered through that Hitler had a new set of demands Chamberlain (“finally,” Fitz said) balked at, leading to Saturday’s somewhat encouraging news of Czech mobilization. And then nothing all Sunday and Monday, not even a line item in the most sensational of papers. Which Jemma knew, because Fitz bought them all and made himself a nest on the floor of the new library rather than helping her put up the books, which he was supposed to be doing.

“Isn’t it a good sign that everything’s quiet?” she asked, heaving the heavy, leather-bound edition of _Principia_ her father had given them as a housewarming gift into place. “Perhaps it will all blow over, another crisis that comes to nothing.”

She could just see his head and neck behind the bed, where he sat with his back against it and to her. “Crises don’t usually come to nothing in the end, though; temporary peace just delays the inevitable result. You know this, Simmons. An inhibitor doesn’t keep the chemical reaction from happening. Remember Lady Hermione said she was sure war was coming, and I’d trust her to recognize the signs.”

“Lady Hermione?” She nearly dropped a book on her foot, too busy trying to remember to keep a good grip on it. “When did she say that?”

He looked over his shoulder, eyebrows drawn together. “I can’t—it might have been at the party, actually.” Pinching the bridge of his nose, he shook his head disbelievingly. “Jove, that was a long time ago.”

And felt longer than it was, she suspected. Everything they had done in the past few weeks made each day draw out like a bit of taffy; the months stretching back to the fateful party seemed endless. Placing the book in her hand on the shelf, she wiped her hands down her grubby skirt and came to lie face-first across the bed so that her head and Fitz’s shared the same space. “About the Osbournes, Fitz.”

They hadn’t discussed it by unspoken but mutual consent, too discouraged to broach the subject at all. Fitz let his head fall back on the bed and rolled his face towards hers. “I know.”

“I just don’t see what we can do any longer—short of tracking down each and every guest at the party to verify their alibis, we’ve hit a dead end.”

He sighed, grimacing. “I hate to not see the problem through. There must be an answer, somewhere, and if there’s an answer someone must be able to find it.”

“Finding it isn’t the problem,” she said, one hand finding his hair and stroking it mindlessly, “it’s proving it. Any of the answers we’ve found _could_ be, but which is? Fitz, I just don’t know…this may be something we can’t solve yet. The…technology hasn’t been built.”

“So.” He regarded her steadily, asking a silent question.

“So,” she sighed, agreeing.

“When should we tell them?”

She considered, trying not to imagine Daphne’s tears. “Wednesday would be the soonest, I think. Or perhaps we should have them for dinner on Friday if they aren’t otherwise engaged. What date would that be?”

“30 September.”

“I’ll ring tomorrow from college and ask. Mrs. Osbourne will be pleased, at least.”

“At least someone will.” He leaned forward to kiss her cheek, nudging her face upward to briefly meet her lips. “I’m sorry, Jemma. I know you hate to lose.”

Thinking of the Osbournes, her mind returning to Sylvia’s plight, catching sight of a map of the disputed Sudetenland in the paper on Fitz’s knee, she felt her heart swell in her chest. Taking his chin in hand, she held him in firmly in place. “I haven’t lost anything important.” Then she pulled him to her and pressed the words into his mouth, so fervent that she would have tumbled headfirst off the bed if he hadn’t caught her and brought her to rest next to his heart. Wrapped in his arms, the steadfast _thump_ under her ear matching the throb of her own blood, she allowed a blissful forgetfulness to fall over all her worries. As long as she had this, she had everything.

 

* * *

 

Despite the note he found on his side table the next morning (“My brilliant James Watt, please don’t self-flagellate about the Osbournes. If we were ever to have a failure far better it be something not in either of our disciplines; now we can continue from strength to strength for the rest of our lives. Your Simmons”) Fitz went into the office with his mood matching the grey weather. Whatever Jemma said, their failure to solve the case weighed heavily on him. Not in itself—he couldn’t help but be a little glad that his actions wouldn’t end in anyone else’s death, much less any of the Osbournes whom he found he liked despite himself—but in principle. How could a man, a decent man with people who loved him, be killed in his own home without proper punishment being meted out? So much for British justice. It felt, in no small way, like the failure of England itself.

“Good morning, sir.”

He made a noise that could have been a greeting at Andrews, who had no feelings to hurt.

“Sir, if you please, there’s a man in your office.”

He stopped halfway to the door, blinking irritably. “I do not please, Andrews. I haven’t had my tea yet today. Couldn’t you put him off?”

“Not this gentleman, sir.”

The delicate lilt over _this_ was enough to provide Fitz a guess as to who awaited him inside. Even prepared, he couldn’t help the way his joints turned to stone when he opened the door and saw the man sitting in his desk chair, for all the world as though it was his office and Fitz the interloper: Smith.

He sucked a breath in through his nose and let it out slowly, reminding himself what exactly was at stake: _Jemma. Mam._ Then, shutting the door with prejudice, he set his briefcase on the ground and stalked over to the sideboard, putting his back deliberately to Smith as he clattered the tea things. “As you’ve already made yourself at home, you won’t mind if I do as well?”

“By all means.”

“To what do I owe the honor of this little visit? Since you used other people to do your dirty work last time.”

“As did you, Mr. Fitz.”

“Fitz-Simmons,” he said, gritting his teeth as he dumped half the sugar cubes into his tea. “I don’t understand why it’s so difficult for you to remember my wife. You remember her well enough to steal her work and threaten her life.”

“What a cunning poem,” Smith said. With his back still turned, Fitz had no way to know what the other man was doing, but from the rustles and scrapes he suspected his desk no longer held any secrets. “Believe me, I remember your wife very well. I worry about her constantly.”

Fitz fought to keep his hands steady as he whipped around to face Smith. Tea sloshed into the saucer regardless. “I will worry about my wife, thank you. She is not your business. Actually, you haven’t got any business with _me_ any more—I’ve designed your idiotic gas rifle and sent plenty of notes for more useful devices to do the same task, which even your prune scientists should be able to follow.”

“Yes, they’ve been very useful.”

“Anything more than that I cannot do as long as you keep asking me to keep this project a secret from my wife. I don’t have time. Nor, to be perfectly honest, do I want to. I have far more important things to do for the safety of my country.”

“We agree.” Smith got to his feet. “If you had brought the schematics yourself, we could have had this conversation then, but as you did not see fit to do so, it had to be this way.”

“That’s nearly a week ago,” Fitz protested, setting the tea down as a hopeless cause. “What, you couldn’t find your diary?”

Nothing he said seemed to affect the man, every jibe and veiled insult hitting and falling like shotgun pellets against a tank. Smith merely smiled tolerantly and said, “I don’t know if you’ve realized, but we’ve got quite a lot going on at present and it’s difficult to find time. I’m sure you understand the lack of hours in a day, Mr. Fitz? And as you’ve worked with us in the past, this little chat was not so pressing as other things. We confidently expect you to maintain confidentiality.”

He scoffed. “Obviously. I’m surprised you felt it necessary to come at all.”

“Caution, Mr. Fitz. A virtue in these dangerous times.” Smith paced around the edge of the desk, trailing one finger along its sleek surface. The motion made a little squeak as he moved. “I urge you to consider the concept. We will have peace, thanks in no small part to your efforts, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t still…collateral damage.”

The air in the room, already chilly, turned cold enough to sting his lungs. He willed himself not to reach back for the sideboard’s support, instead shoving his hands in his trouser pockets as nonchalantly as he could manage. “What do you mean, exactly?”

Smith tsked. “You know I can’t say exactly.”

“Generally then,” Fitz insisted quickly, unable to look away from Smith’s clammy hands tracing the edge of Jemma’s picture. “I can hardly heed the warning if I don’t know what I’m being warned about.”

“I’ve said all I can. These next few days, Mr. Fitz, may prove the spark that ignites the explosion, or they may prove the flame-retardant blanket. Either way, it’s a good week to be at home.” Lifting his hand from the frame, he gathered up his coat from where it was flung over one of the guest chairs. “Your services are invaluable to your country, Mr. Fitz. We would hate for anything to complicate that.”

“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.”

“No?” Smith raised his eyebrows, a live, clean-shaven Guy Fawkes mask. “Then my warning is this: look to your own house. Good day, Mr. Fitz. I hope we shall work together soon.”

Smith oozed past Fitz and into the outer office, the silky smoothness of his movements at odds with the musty, cellar stench he left in his wake. Holding his breath, Fitz watched Smith all the way into the lift, then turned sharply to Andrews. “Can you have Mrs. Johnson send up someone with some disinfecting fluid? I find my office in need of some cleaning.”

“Right away, sir.”

“But before that, Andrews, ring Mrs. Fitz-Simmons at her college.”

“Mrs. Fitz-Simmons will be in lecture, sir.”

With a confirmatory glance at his watch, Fitz swore inwardly. “Blast, so she is. Well, leave a message with Padgett that I’d like her to call me as soon as she gets in, and send it through when she does, Andrews, even if I’m in a meeting with the King himself.”

Andrews’s eyes widened two hairs. “As you wish, sir.”

Only his mother’s careful training ensured the automatic “thank you” he managed before slamming the door to his office and slumping against it, one hand pinching the bridge of his nose hard enough to leave a mark while the other clenched into a fist. What the _hell_ was that? It almost sounded as though Smith was warning him _against_ Jemma, as though she presented a danger—but of course that couldn’t be, she bought fresh bread to feed the ducks in the park and donated regularly to the RSCPA, she knew every word of the scientific news and continually forgot the name of the Home Secretary, she was the kindest person he knew. She could have nothing to do with anything that would worry Smith. Therefore, logically, it was only another form of the warning Smith had already given him. But why now, when the project was done? Why belabor the point? They knew by now what he would do for Jemma. They surely couldn’t imagine he would abandon his defense now.

More than once that morning he felt certain his clock had wound down, each minute taking much longer than the official sixty seconds. Without meetings to fill his time with distractions, he had nothing better to do but watch it until his eyes blurred, looking away only to fix the phone with a glare and will it to ring. All his staring had no effect. Time did not move faster and the phone did not shriek into life until a minute before he had any right to expect it to. Fumbling in his haste to pick up the receiver, he got it the wrong way round before he managed to get out a breathless “hullo?” into the correct end.

“Fitz? Is something wrong?”

“Jemma.” He nearly collapsed in relief, instead leaning back in his chair with his head dangling off the side. “No, nothing’s wrong with me if nothing’s wrong with you. Is anything?”

She laughed merrily, not a little relief in her own voice. “No, of course not. What could be wrong?”

“Nothing.” He forced a laugh as well. No reason for her to worry. “I only—no, never mind. It’s ridiculous.”

“You aren’t worrying about what we discussed last night, are you?”

“Last night?” The concerns of the last few hours had entirely consumed whatever he may have been worried about before then, but the memory fortunately flooded back before he could make a further fool of himself. “Oh, the Osbournes? Hadn’t even thought about it.”

“Good. I rang them up before my lecture—they’re unavailable all this week, but we’re engaged for dinner next Saturday. That’s 8 October—shall I tell Andrews to put it in the diary?”

“No, I will.”

“It’s strange,” she mused, “even when I mentioned it was to do with our investigation, there was no urgency to meet sooner. Perhaps they don’t care as much as we think they do.”

“Why ever it is, I don’t mind,” he said. “I was thinking it might be rather nice to stay in the next few evenings, not see anyone or do anything particular.”

“What have we been doing the _last_ few evenings?” she asked, laughing.

Though she couldn’t see him, he put his hand on his neck, uncomfortable. “I know, just—it never seems often enough. We’re so busy.”

“I know.” Her voice softened. “You’re right, it would be lovely. Let’s do, if we can possibly manage it. And now I must run, Fitz, or I’ll be late for Hall. I’ll see you when I come home.”

“I can’t wait,” he said, not caring if Padgett or the operator or Andrews or anyone else heard his pathetic need for her presence, and added, even more embarrassingly honest, “I love you.”

“We’ll test that conclusion tonight. Goodbye, Fitz.”

“Goodbye.”

He set the receiver down gently, closing his eyes to let the last wisps of her voice smooth the edges of his jagged, worried heart. Just like before, he had seen a threat where none existed—at least, existed in concrete rather than abstract form. As long as he kept up his end of the understanding, Jemma would be safe and, as he had no intention of crossing Smith with anything sharper than barbed retorts, he truly had nothing to worry about. At least, nothing to worry about that he had any control over. There could still be a train smash or fire or a German air attack—after all, as Smith was so fond of reminding him, they lived in dangerous times. But if he stopped to think of any of that, he’d never get any work done. Loving someone, he acknowledged with a sigh as he returned to his paperwork, required a great deal of trusting to the mercies of Providence.

After that, the day moved at Einstein’s theorized speed of light, and before he knew it the time had come to shrug on his coat and go home. Bidding Andrews a much more pleasant farewell than he had “good morning”, Fitz took the stairs rather than the lift and burst out into the near-twilight in high spirits, eager to reach home and his wife.

He made it two blocks down the street before the cries of the news hawkers broke through his good mood, turning the glitter-grey path to a dull iron slog, and he accepted Jemma’s welcome home salute without noticing. Dropping back on her heels, she let her hands trail from his cheeks to his neck to gently direct his unseeing eyes to meet hers. “Sweetheart. What’s wrong?”

He dug in his burberry’s pocket and slowly extracted a folded paper, handing it to her with no comment. Jemma took it with a budding sense of dread. Fitz had been in a rotten mood all week over the news, but he had always been able to verbalize it; this silence worried her more than any ranting could ever do. Unfolding the paper, she read the headline and felt the dread burst into bloom. “Chamberlain won’t support the Czechs if they decide to fight the Germans? But I thought—”

“We were allies?” Fitz scoffed, stung into speech, “or that he was about to gain a backbone and refuse to kowtow to Hitler’s demands?”

Yes, of course, both those things. She skimmed the article as quickly as she could, seeing more support for Charles’s position in every line, unable to speak for the growing lump in her throat. “What does this mean?” she finally managed when she reached the bottom, glancing from the paper to Fitz as he divested himself of coat and hat. “We aren’t going to war, of course, but what else?”

“I can’t even begin to imagine.” He scrubbed one hand over his face, propping the other on his hip. “The Czechs are in a hell of a spot, that’s for sure, unless the French decide to live up to their agreement—maybe even then. Chamberlain’s gained favor with Hitler, no doubt, for however long that lasts.”

“Will the people accept that?” she asked, imagining the streets filled with thousands of Charles’s cellar crowd. “I know no one wants war, but there seemed to be a good deal of support for the Czechs in the papers.”

“I imagine they’ll explain it in such a way that it sounds like it’s in Czechoslovakia’s best interest. Who can say if they’ll be successful. Perhaps they’ll throw out the government. Perhaps they’ll throw him a parade.” He pinched his nose, a sure sign of internal conflict, and slumped enough to match her short stature, suddenly taking on the guise of a much older man. “Simmons, I rather wish I had sold MI when I had the chance. We could have moved to a castle in a remote part of Scotland and known nothing of this. I think there are still places they only deliver the papers once a week.”

She could have done any number of things: reminded him he wouldn’t be content not doing his duty; teased gently that castles cost a lot to keep up; reassured him of her confidence in his abilities; blithely promised everything would turn out all right. But he was so fragile, and none of those seemed quite right. Instead, she went up to him, brought his head to her shoulder, and kissed his hair, stroking long lines over his scalp and down his neck. “Let’s not talk about it, then. It sounds like nothing is certain, and remember what my mother says? Speculation—”

“—is the enemy of calm,” he chimed in. She nodded. “We ought to have some calm, sweetheart.”

His mouth flattened into a grim line against her collarbone. “While we can.”

And for once, Jemma couldn’t balance out his pessimism. Whatever he knew and couldn’t tell her clearly weighed on him; well, she had her own secrets that plunged already bad news into coal-black depths. Even as she drew Fitz to the drawing room to give him his slippers and pour his tea and regale him with stories of her day, her ever-busy mind weighed every sentence of Charles’s diatribe against this new information. If last week had not been the proper time, she thought, perhaps this wouldn’t be either? In truth nothing about the situation had especially changed between this week and last—just as before, England abandoned the Czechs to their fate at Hitler’s hands. And now that Chamberlain had promised no war, Charles lost an important weapon; those in his group motivated by a desire for peace had got it. That would weaken him. They ought to be at least as safe as before, she concluded, and attempted to push it firmly from her mind.

As though she had used up her fair share of ostrich-like blindness over the weekend, her attempts remained unsuccessful. All evening long, she found herself mentally rearguing the situation, now managing to shout herself down, now not. Fitz remained preoccupied too, for all their efforts at ordinary behavior, and they went to bed early—trying, Jemma expected, to silence the voices in their head. For all the good it did. Exhausted, she went to sleep directly her head hit the pillow, only to wake an hour later from a bad dream and find Fitz tossing and turning beside her.

“You too?” she asked into the dark.

He huffed a mirthless laugh. “Haven’t been to sleep yet.”

“Are you frightened?”

“Yes. And exhausted.”

“I am, too. Both those things.”

Exhausted perhaps more than frightened. The continual looping circles of doubt and self-recrimination, the effort to convince herself that she had no ability to do anything more than she had, the fear that wheezed in every breath of her lungs—all these demanded so much, leaving her dry as a bone in a desert. Worse, she had banished herself from her only oasis. Even if Fitz wasn’t nearly empty himself, she couldn’t seek refreshment in his reassurance and comfort because she _couldn’t speak to him about it_ , could say nothing about Charles or Mark or the police or the potential bombs because doing so would only worry him further. He would try to help her bear it in addition to whatever weighed so heavily on him and be crushed underneath it. Oh, she knew. At the beginning, she had kept the secret to protect him from Charles; now she had to keep it to protect him from his own golden heart. Staring unseeingly at the ceiling, she felt tears sneaking from the corners of her eyes. Apparently she wasn’t quite dry yet.

“Well,” Fitz said, “as long as we’re both awake—”

His mouth met hers desperately and she kissed him back with matching fervor, her hands flying to his shoulder blades to keep him close, her tears disappearing under the scrape of his palms as he pushed himself up on his elbows above her. “We’re alive,” he said, breath heaving against her cheek and heart racing against her chest, “and we love each other. Can that be enough, just for now?”

In answer she surged up and kissed him again, one hand winding into his hair to keep him close. “Yes, Fitz. Oh, yes.”

And it was, enough to silence the voices and ease her weariness. Enough to make sure she slept well for what few hours remained of the night.

 

* * *

 

 

She held on to the fragile peace as long as she could, lingering to stroke his sleeping, unlined face before sneaking out to the office without so much as a glance at the papers. Looking at them would only open the gate for invasion. By resolutely stopping her ears to the news sellers and not stopping to speak to the girl at MI’s front desk as she usually did, she made it to her lab still in a pleasant haze, able and eager to pretend that the only things she had to worry her could be explained scientifically. Perhaps today would be the day she finally solved that pesky Snow White solution. As she opened her notes and got out her beakers, she almost made herself believe it.

“Jemma?”

The gate went crashing down at the timid question from the doorway. Back stiffening along with her resolve, she took a deep breath before looking up. Sylvia’s hands wrung in front of her, dark caverns under her eyes betraying the fact that she slept as well as Jemma did these days. “May I come in?”

“Of course.”

She did, and with her came the entirety of the world Jemma had been trying madly to keep out. Sylvia’s mere presence told her everything. “I expect,” she said, taking the bull by the horns, “that you’ve heard from Mark after yesterday’s news?”

“This morning,” Sylvia said quietly.

“And there’s a meeting he wants us to attend?”

“Tonight.”

Jemma nodded. “And you’ve decided to go?”

“I don’t want to,” Sylvia said, sparks flying upward before burning out. “But you’re right. We have a responsibility to do what we can. And they can’t know what we mean to do, can they? We’ll be safe enough.”

“Very well.” Jemma set her lips and nodded briskly. “Are we going together, or were you to meet Mark beforehand?”

“We can go together. Mark says he’ll be busy.”

“Very well,” she said again, having expected nothing less. As soon as she heard Sylvia’s voice, she knew how her evening would progress: the veiled truth to Fitz, the clandestine journey, the dread in her bones, the creep up her spine. And yet she felt no sense of dread at the moment, only resignation. As Sylvia said, they had a responsibility; all Jemma’s hemming and hawing couldn’t change the fact that they two might be the only thing between peace and disaster.

Convincing Fitz of her need to leave the house that night proved more difficult than she expected, compounded with the difficulty of convincing him he didn’t need to go with her. All her assurances that she was perfectly capable of going to Sylvia’s by herself and that his presence afterwards would be superfluous had no effect. He kept insisting, swearing he didn’t mind waiting, promising he only wanted to be available to help if needed. Help with what, she wondered? “No, Fitz, truly,” she said for the twentieth time, determined in her refusal, “I can’t say how late I’ll be, and Sylvia’s landlady doesn’t allow men upstairs. You’d just have to kick your heels in her stuffy sitting room. Please, sweetheart, don’t fret so much. What do you think will happen to us?”

“I’ll fret less when there’s less need,” he grumbled petulantly without answering the question, but there was no heat in and she knew she had won. Darting over to kiss him just at his hairline, she sent up a wave of gratitude that this one last deception had worked. Truly, she promised herself, then and the entire journey out, the very last.

Sylvia seemed even less inclined to talk than usual, and when Mark met them at the station he was, for once, the most enthusiastic member of the party. All the way through the right-left-lefts he began sentences and abandoned them halfway through, clearly bubbling over with ideas and unable to stem the flow even as a matter of secrecy. Following him closely, Jemma took note of every word. So far he hadn’t said anything they could take to the police, but one never knew when he might. It was no wonder, she thought, that Charles didn’t trust him with anything important; he gossiped worse than a schoolgirl. Sylvia walked beside her, hands quivering and the last embers of a fire in her eyes.

Busily listening and counting the turns, she nearly collided with Mark when he came to a stop before a set of front stairs. “What’s this?” Sylvia asked, and Mark grinned with all the glee of a rat in a sewer.

“Only the very inner circles know this way,” he said, “a special privilege for you, Mrs. Fitz-Simmons, and me for bringing you. Charles gave me the key.”

He fished a slim skeleton from his pocket and directed them up the stairs, opening the door with a flourish. Stepping into its pitch-black maw, Jemma felt the chill of a cavern, her footsteps strangely muffled as she walked. Sylvia sucked in a quick gasp and clutched at Jemma’s wrist. “Something ran over my foot,” she whispered.

“Shh,” came Mark’s voice from somewhere behind them. “Do you want everyone to know where we are?”

Jemma bit back a retort and regretfully set aside thoughts of the tiny torch Fitz made and she carried in her pocketbook, shuffling her feet along the ground and keeping her hand firmly in Sylvia’s as she counted out the steps to steady her nerves: _One. Two. Three_.

On the count of forty-seven, they took a short flight of stairs down, ending in what must have been the kitchens; the wall under her fingertips grew rough as Mark led them into smaller and smaller rooms. Stopping at a dead end, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a bigger torch. “Hold this for me,” he said, shoving the light at Sylvia and putting both his hands against the wall. The shadows cast across his face turned his eyes to dark holes as he strained and shoved.

Without warning or noise the wall gave way, revealing a narrow opening that might have gone to the centre of the earth for all she could see. Sylvia flicked the light into it. “You must have all the trappings of a secret society, mustn’t you?” she said, and brushed boldly past Mark without waiting for a response. Jemma followed her, slightly stunned and primarily pleased, leaving Mark to come last.

Fortunately, this corridor only extended a few feet before ending in, Jemma was surprised to see, a wooden door with one of those new magnetic latches. Shoving past them, Mark pushed it so it swung in on silent hinges—or perhaps they were simply too quiet to be heard over the noise of the room. The murmur she noticed in the corridor grew loud as a thunderclap, throwing up a wall of sound she felt hit her in the face as she walked into the brightly lit room. The silent groups of people had merged into one roiling mass, their faces at once individual and indistinguishable in the bright white light that illuminated every nook and cranny. Jemma had to close her eyes until she could bear it and when she opened them again she nearly didn’t recognize this as the same room as they had visited before; only the long bar and the stairs behind them—from under which they had just emerged—served as proof. Beside her, Sylvia blinked furiously. “What’s going on, Mark? Why the festival atmosphere?”

He swung his arms wide, as if embracing the entire crowd. “Because it’s finally happening!”

The room was suddenly a vacuum, leaving Jemma gasping for air. Sylvia stammered, unable to speak, but her eyes when they met Jemma’s said everything: _help_ and _what_ and _dear God_. Jemma couldn’t respond if her life depended upon it. Every particle of her being was occupied with sifting through all possible courses of action to find the one most like to result in neither Sylvia nor herself being killed, with a preference for those in which no one else died, either. Nothing, to her horror, came to mind. They might be able to sneak away from Mark, but if they did where would they go? She didn’t know where the nearest police station was. And what would they say if they found someone? They still didn’t know _what_ was happening, what long-planned storm was about to break and to whose detriment, nothing that could convince the authorities that they weren’t two hysterical women out for attention. She wanted to scream and to weep and to beat her fists against whomever happened to be nearest. Instead, she stayed perfectly still, thought _Fitz_ , and forced shaky words through tight lips. “What’s happening? You’ve never said what Charles means to do, exactly.”

“No one knows,” Mark replied, zeal radiating off him in waves, “but he means to tell us tonight so we can put it into action tomorrow. We’re finally going to overthrow our oppressors and put the power in the hands of men who deserve it! I’ve been promised a place in the new Cabinet, you know.”

Tomorrow! Sylvia wavered, gripping Jemma’s wrist to keep herself upright; Jemma would have liked to do the same, but knew she couldn’t allow herself the luxury. _Fitz. Fitz._ “No, I had no idea. How exciting. When will we—”

But the crowd roared a response to her unasked question, turning with one body to the bar where Jemma could just see Charles’s dark head over the crowd. A moment after, his shoulders and torso followed as he apparently stood up on the bar, holding out his hands for silence. For once obedience did not immediately follow. The acolytes strained forward to get close to him, their voices rising like dogs on the hunt, baying his name and barking out questions, slobbering in excitement. Jemma twisted her hand to clasp Sylvia’s. She could allow herself this much comfort, surely.

“Friends!” Charles shouted, “Friends, listen! I know you’re excited, as you should be, but we mustn’t lose our heads! We must maintain control to gain control! Please!”

His pleading eventually had an effect and the shouts turned to murmurs, though the crowd continued to press until they were packed like sardines, shoulder to shoulder and chest to back. Annoyance faded from Charles face to be replaced by a nearly divine benevolence. “My friends, you know why I have called you here, and you, like I, are eager and ready! The time has come to unveil our plan. But first, I seek volunteers for a dangerous task. I will not lie to you, my friends, not like those who hold your lives in their hands at present—we may have our first martyrs to the cause from this number. But what they will gain us, ah! Who will help me?”

She should no longer be surprised, but the hands and shouts rising across the room—even Mark’s beside them—staggered her; these people would actually volunteer for a potential death sentence? For what purpose? They followed Charles because they wanted power or vengeance or respect, none of which they would receive if they died fighting for it. Illogical, she wanted to scream, but then this whole thing was a mockery of reason.

“You!” Charles pointed, “you, my friend, and you—”

_BANG._

The first noise Jemma might have chalked up to a car backfiring, but then came another. And another. And another and another and another—gun shots, she realized, suddenly no longer able to keep her knees from buckling under her, just as a loud voice bellowed “This is a raid!”

Instantly, the clamoring took on a shrill, panicked pitch. One high scream pierced the air. Charles disappeared from above the crowd, no longer presenting a target; half the group wheeled on its heels to push towards the stairs and the rest shoved towards the other door, but even through the undulating mob Jemma could see a broad-shouldered figure with a terrifying-shaped head standing in the way. Craning her neck, she saw another figure on the stairs above them, wearing a gas mask—which explained the strange shadow—and a rifle—or pistol, or what was that? like no gun she had ever seen—in hand as he spent his bullets above the crowd. Sylvia yanked her down, away from the spray, but Jemma pulled them both to their feet and pressed them back towards the wall of the stairs. The bullets would fall regardless and they were likely to be trampled if they didn’t keep their feet. Already, someone was down and being stepped on, unresisting or moving to avoid the pounding feet. Jemma started forward to help without thinking, forgetting the person could already be dead, heedless of her own safety, when Sylvia cried out and she whirled around to face her. Oh God, oh God, what had they done?

But Sylvia looked confused rather than hurt, staring as something in her hand. “Jemma,” she shouted, “what is this?”

Jemma came forward and took the thing from Sylvia’s hand.

Her heart stopped.

It wasn’t a bullet at all, but a tiny glass capsule with a mesh-and-metal head, two chambers displaying pink liquid that seeped through the head in a nearly-invisible haze. She knew this work. How—what—

“And do you smell that?” Sylvia shouted again, nearly in her ear. “Jemma, isn’t that anise? So this is—”

It was. They said it at the same time.

“The Snow White compound.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> dun dun DUNNNNN
> 
> True story, I've been waiting for this chapter and the next one for months. Hold on to your hats!


	25. The Storm Breaks

They stared at each other over the thing, the unholy child of her work and Fitz’s, for a split second. Then, without speaking, Sylvia closed Jemma’s hand around it and grabbed her wrist, using her shoulder to push open the hidden door they had come through before shoving Jemma in and following as quickly as she could. As soon as Sylvia was in, Jemma slammed it shut and put her back to it, keeping it closed despite the shouts and shudders as someone outside rammed against it. Sylvia thumped beside her, putting her mouth right by Jemma’s ear so she could be heard. “We can’t stay here.”

Somehow Jemma had managed to keep hold of her pocketbook and she scrabbled to open it, dropping the gas bullet into its depths while pulling out the torch. One of Fitz’s inventions for another, she thought hysterically before taking hold of herself and switching it on. “On go,” she said, “run as fast as you can. One, two, three, go!”

The sounds of the raid behind them were lost in the pounding of their feet and the shuddery sounds of their ragged breath as they raced up the short corridor and shot through the door into the deserted house. In the light of the torch, Jemma saw at once they had no hope of getting it shut after them and only hoped no one had followed them yet—though the marks of their feet in the thick dust on the ground would tell the story clear enough. Sylvia pounded to the top of the stairs and stopped, confused; Jemma flicked the flashlight ahead and counted her steps backwards through the tall grey rooms: _forty-seven. Forty-six._

They reached the door at zero and burst out onto the street, chests heaving. Only once she felt the cool air on her face did Jemma realize they may have escaped only to run into the police’s clutches, but in a miracle straight from God—Jemma was in no mood to quibble over the possibility of divine intervention—it appeared that the house they had just left backed up to the cellar, meaning the constabulary and any escaping revolutionaries were separated from their position by a street. Still, they wouldn’t be safe here for long. Jemma paused only long enough to put the torch away before taking hold of Sylvia again and tugging her towards the end of the street and less suspicious environments. Two unaccompanied women in this hour at this place would be unusual enough; they didn’t need to linger so near. “I can find the station,” she said, “we’ll be all right once we’re there.”

At first, every rustle of paper flying in the wind or shadow crossing their path made them both jump, but they found their way to the station without incident and Jemma heaved a sigh of relief. She and Sylvia checked each other by the light of the streetlamp to make sure their appearance wouldn’t cause questions. “I hope there’s no one there,” Sylvia said as she indicated that Jemma should straighten her hat. “Your clothes look all right, but your face looks as though you’ve seen a ghost.”

“Something worse, I’m afraid.” Jemma took a deep breath to steady herself. “If we can just get someplace decent and find a taxi—”

“I know.” Linking her arm through Jemma’s, Sylvia set her jaw. “We’ll be all right.”

They entered the deserted station timidly all the same, expecting no one but jangled enough that an army of ghouls wouldn’t have surprised them. In the corner, a woman mopping looked up at them without interest. Jemma squeezed Sylvia’s elbow to her, offering the woman a polite smile, and led the way to the stairs to the trains. They might be all right, after all.

“Pardon me, ladies.”

The official voice of the law boomed across the station, loud and severe enough to make hardened criminals shake in their boots, much less two already frightened scientists. From the ticket office, a tall, broad, cross-looking constable strode towards them, swinging his billy club just a hair short of threatening. Sylvia’s face went pale, and Jemma’s words came out in a quiver. “Is something wrong, officer?”

He came up beside them and glared down his nose, his whole face wrinkled like a prune. “I was about to ask you the same question. It’s awfully late for two ladies to be out in this part of town.”

“Is it?” Jemma asked, weakly, pretending to look at her watch just to avoid his piercing examination. “Goodness, Sylvia, look at the time! We utterly lost track. Are there even still trains running, officer?”

“There are not,” he said. “We’ve stopped the trains out of this station as a police matter. We performed a raid against a dangerous secret society and don’t want any of the criminals getting away.” Somehow, his glare grew more suspicious. “But then, you would have seen that in the streets?”

“The streets are very quiet,” Sylvia said without looking up. “We didn’t notice anything unusual on our way here.”

“From where?”

The answer came readily, as though implanted in her brain—another miracle, she would go to All Souls and shove five pounds in the poor box once this was all over—and she spoke steadily, finding courage in the steady press of Sylvia’s fingers into her arm. “We’ve got a friend who lives here with his family: Mr. Aaron Klein, I don’t know if you know him?” She didn’t wait for a response, hoping beyond hope the policeman did not have the pleasure, and turned to Sylvia with a petulant stamp of her foot. “Bother, and now the trains aren’t running, I expect I’ll have to ring Fitz and have him come get us in the car. Lucky he won’t be asleep yet. I don’t suppose we could use the station’s phone, officer? I’ve got the coins.”

Much as he would prefer to refuse he had no reason to do so, and grudgingly escorted her to the office with a jab in the direction of the phone. Sitting in the leather chair before it, she snuck a glance at Sylvia as she settled her skirts and her nerves. Only Sylvia’s fingers, working quickly over the clasp of Jemma’s pocketbook, gave away her worry. The policeman crossed his arms, expectant. Jemma wished she could take a deep breath, lifting the receiver and rattling off her phone number to the sleepy operator on the other end.

Lane sounded surprised to hear from her, but got Fitz to the phone in record time. He sounded rather as though he had been running when he spoke. “Jemma? Is everything all right?”

_Please, Fitz_ , she thought, _now’s the time to read my mind._ “Oh, hullo, darling.”

His voice turned wary, having heard the implicit warning in the endearment. “What’s wrong?”

“Oh, nothing very serious, only I’m out in Golders Green with Sylvia visiting her fiancé and we’ve run into a spot of trouble.”

“Golders—Jemma, did you go to the Soviet Club again?”

“Not quite,” she laughed, hoping the policeman didn’t notice the near-hysteria in the sound. “We thought we’d take the train back, but there’s a policeman here with us who says they’ve stopped them because they’ve just carried out a raid on a dangerous secret society. Mark that, Fitz!”

His brilliant brain needed less than a second to understand and formulate the correct response: a stream of fluid curses his mother would swat him for. She echoed them wholeheartedly, but silently. “Anyway, we’ll need you to run the car out and come retrieve us. We’re at the station now and we can wait here if you like, or—”

“Aaron,” he said, and she thought she heard a snap. “Aaron lives in Golders Green.”

“Yes, I thought that would be better myself.” She fell back in the chair and crossed her legs, casual as anything. “Have you got the address? It should be written down…”

“Yeah, one moment—yes, we’ll have another three minutes, please.”

The receiver clunked on the other end and she offered the policeman a timid smile. “He’s looking for it. I can’t leave him alone for a minute!”

The policeman remained skeptical. Sylvia dropped Jemma’s pocketbook and stooped to pick it up.

_Clunk. Shthshths._ “All right, I’ve got it. Ready?”

She repeated it after him, pretending it was the other way around, and was gratified to see the policeman writing it down. When he was done, he said “I’m not certain how to get there, but I’ll leave straight away. Jemma, what the hell were you thinking?”

“I’ll tell you all about it later, darling. Come as quickly as you can! We’re anxious to get home.”

She hung up without waiting for Fitz’s response, suddenly very close to tears. All she wanted was to be home with Fitz, to have him hold her and keep her hair from sticking to her face as she cried out the emotions threatening to boil over in a foul-smelling stream, but she knew that paradise was much further away than the trip from home to here. She had too much to explain.

With nothing more than a glimpse from the corner of her eye, Sylvia seemed to understand how perilously close Jemma was to a scene. “Officer, I wonder,” she said, deepening the worried furrow between her eyes, “would you mind escorting us? If the streets are as dangerous as you say, I’d feel so much better if we didn’t have to traverse them alone.”

“I would think of nothing else,” he said.

Sylvia glanced at Jemma. “How gallant,” she said, though they both knew his motivations had nothing to do with their safety and everything to do with verifying their tale. They weren’t out of the woods just yet. If Aaron wasn’t quick on his feet—or if, God forbid, he had stayed late at the exchange and wasn’t even at home—well, Jemma just wouldn’t think about it. There had already been so many miracles already this evening; one more wouldn’t be too much to ask.

She and Sylvia kept up a steady flow of conversation all the way there—Jemma never knew, later, about what exactly, only that they were both nervous and giggly enough to seem intoxicated, providing an excuse for why they took the wrong turns if they didn’t have their escort’s specific directions. His scowl grew deeper the further they went, and by the time they landed on the Kleins’ doorstep it had grown into a full-fledged storm that terrified the poor girl who answered his insistent knock before he even said a word. “Is there a Mr. Klein here? A Mr. Aaron Klein?”

She squeaked, looking over her shoulder as Jemma’s heart sank. “He’s—”

“Sarah? Who is it?”

Thank God, she thought with a tremendous sigh of relief, and Aaron came bounding up to appear in the doorway, surprise lighting his eyes as he looked at the motley crew on his steps. The policeman cleared his throat. “Mr. Klein, these women say—”

But Aaron interrupted, exclaiming something that sounded like “matock” before shouldering past the still-frozen maid to seize both Sylvia’s hands and use them to pull her into an embrace. Jemma caught a glimpse of Sylvia’s startled eyes before Aaron turned their bodies to hide her face from the police officer, directing his anxious questions at Jemma. “Has something happened, Mrs. Fitz-Simmons? Are you both all right? If that _meshugah_ cousin of mine hasn’t taken care of you—”

Somehow, his eyebrows managed to portray concern while his eyes beamed encouragement, and she found the petulant annoyance she needed to accompany a first-class eyeroll. “Oh, it’s _too_ tedious, Mr. Klein. Apparently the police have shut all the trains down and so we’re stranded here until my husband can come retrieve us. I hope your mother doesn’t mind.”

“She’ll be delighted.”

The policeman shoved his way back into the conversation, though he averted his eyes from the still-embracing couple. “Do I understand that you know these women?”

“Of course I do,” Aaron said firmly.

“And they were here with you tonight?”

“I say.” Finally releasing Sylvia, Aaron pushed her behind him and stepped a little in front of Jemma. “I don’t care for the tenor of that question. To insinuate these two ladies, both of whom are the very souls of honor and virtue, would tell you something untrue—”

“There are things going on here you don’t know anything about,” the policeman said, shifting his jaw like a bulldog. “Were they, or were they not, here with you this evening.”

From her place behind, Jemma couldn’t see Aaron’s face, but the set of his shoulders suggested he had matched the policeman posture for posture. “Yes, they were. Whatever’s happening, I know they have nothing to do with it. If you’ll pardon me, my fiancée is shaking, and I’m going to get her some tea before she swoons. Good evening.” And then he turned, bustled them into the house with a hand resting between each of their shoulder blades, and gestured for the poor maid to shut the door.

“Thank the Master of the Universe,” he said under his breath when they heard it latch behind them, “he would have been perfectly within his rights to charge me with contempt. But I think we’re safe now.”

Jemma’s knees nearly collapsed underneath her, and she threw out a hand to brush against the brown-papered wall of the hall. “Thank God for you, Aaron. I nearly can’t believe that worked.”

“Oh, well,” Aaron said, a tad shaky himself, “overt affectionate displays have that effect on a great many people, and you know us Jews, so emotional. It was worth trying, at least.” He turned to Sylvia, who had buried her face in her hands, and cleared his throat. “I apologize for my little ruse. You’re a brick for playing along.”

Sylvia huffed a laugh, still not looking up. “What else could I do?”

Aaron smiled shyly, putting his hands in his pockets and looking, just for a moment, like Fitz when she had first met him, all uncertainty and sweetness and astonishment. “Well, you might have slapped me. But I’m glad you didn’t.”

And then, in merely the newest of the unexpected and startling occurrences in a night filled with them, Sylvia lifted her head from her hands and laughed properly, a high clear ring of bells that Jemma hadn’t heard in months, if ever at all. “I won’t brawl with my fiancé in the street. Particularly not before we’ve been properly introduced.”

His growing confidence reflected her laugh, and he knocked his knuckles against his forehead with a wince. “Good heavens, where are my manners—grabbing a girl without introducing myself first.” He stuck out his hand to shake. “Aaron Klein.”

“Sylvia Forbes,” she said, taking it. “Thank you for coming to our rescue.”

“My pleasure. And I really am sorry for all that—the only thing I understood from Fitz’s panicked call was that I might be somebody’s fiancé, and when there were two of you there I knew I couldn’t possibly be Jemma’s. Not that she wouldn’t be a lovely wife—”

“No, of course,” Sylvia said, “but she and Mr. Fitz-Simmons would never pretend—”

“He simply wouldn’t allow it.”

“Precisely.”

Feeling rather excluded and still slightly shaky, Jemma attempted to move the conversation forwards. “Fitz rang?”

Aaron turned to her with rather an air of having forgotten her presence. Another time, she would have minded that more than she presently had energy to. “I understood a bit more than that, clearly—he said you were in trouble and coming and that he would be here as quick as he could. And in the meantime, I am to take care of you upon pain of death. Thus: I have done so.”

“I’m sorry you had to lie about it.”

“That’s all right,” he said stoutly, “Yom Kippur is next week, so I just have to keep alive until then. I did not lie, however, when I said my mother would be delighted you are here. Come in, won’t you, and we’ll get you some tea?”

He ushered them into a warm, welcoming room, all golden brown and worn and an ever-expanding set of people with Aaron’s same easy joviality and an array of unfamiliar names that passed Jemma by in a blur. The only one she felt certain of was that his mother was called Rachel, and that only because Sylvia commented that her mother had shared the name.

“That’s an unusual name for a Gentile,” Mrs. Klein said curiously. “What was her name before she married?”

“I’m afraid I don’t know,” Sylvia said. “We never spoke of it, and she’s—I lost her many years ago.”

Mrs. Klein made a comforting clucking noise. “Sha. Well, perhaps she was one of us and married outside the faith—a tragedy for everyone when that happens, except of course for present company. Tea, Miss Forbes? Mrs. Fitz-Simmons, you will take tea?”

Jemma accepted a cup and a seat in the corner, where she watched Aaron and his near-twin and a girl who looked nothing like them except for the twinkle in her eyes chafe each other good-humoredly to Sylvia’s great amusement, and finally felt the tension and fear drain away. A glance at her watch attempted to convince her that it wasn’t yet midnight, but she found that difficult to believe; it seemed a lifetime since she had left Fitz sulking at home. And now when he came he would be anxious, and angry, and worried, and she would have to try to find the words to somehow explain how she had managed to be caught in the middle of a raid against a group of people who meant to set off bombs and bring down the government. If only she had told him everything any of the hundred times she had wanted to. She couldn’t even imagine how to begin now.

Only. Only perhaps he knew more about it even than she did. Because this little thing in her pocketbook was so clearly his handiwork—even if she didn’t recognize it from the drawings on his desk last week, she knew his style by now. It practically shouted his name. She reached into her pocketbook without thinking, only to freeze with the thing in her hand. It had still been leaking gas when she shoved it in there; had she just unthinkingly exposed them all to the Snow White solution? No, she realized after the first, brief panic. If it was her Snow White solution—and it certainly looked and behaved like it—it would have seeped harmlessly into the air and dissipated as they ran. It oughtn’t have had the effect it did in the club, really, with the doors open. Even at its most powerful, it hadn’t achieved those results in any of her tests.

How then?

She pulled out the thing—bullet, she supposed, seeing that it had come from a gun—to stare at it. In the flurry and subsequent flight she hadn’t even stopped to consider _how_ , but now the question occurred it overwhelmed everything else buzzing through her brain. _How_ had this bit of innovation come to be in the hands of the authorities? More, how had it even come to _exist_? Theoretically, someone with access to their work could create something similar, but the likelihood that the mysterious creator could have, on his own, been able to incorporate the features she had left for Fitz last week was slim to none. No, it had to come from Fitz. But if he had such a project in hand, he would have told her—he had used her formula, for God’s sake, he would _never_ try to put the two together without her advice. He would certainly never muck about with her formulas; even if he knew where to begin, he had a horror of causing unintentional harm that made him hesitant to even pass her beakers without several confirmations. So how had—

The answer came to her in a flash of lightning, the simplest of all solutions because it answered every question. Fitz designed this, but he hadn’t made it. He had given the design to someone else. And, because the bullet only existed to carry her formula, he had given that away, as well. _This_ was the secret project for Whitehall, the meetings he wouldn’t tell her about, the reason he was so willing for her to abandon their plans. He had been using her work behind her back. Worse, he had _given_ someone her work behind her back, without asking or informing, in a reckless abandonment of scientific practice and a heartless abuse of her trust. Neither of which sounded anything like Fitz, she admonished herself. But what other answer could there be? she asked, and received no response.

Some time later—long enough to argue herself out of and back into her conclusion a dozen times at least—an insistent pounding at the door gave way to an equally insistent “where is my wife?”

“Ah,” Aaron said, “methinks I hear the dulcet tones of a Scotsman.”

Fitz burst through the door with the maid hot on his heels, his eyes sweeping over the room until they landed on her. In three quick strides he was before her chair and pulling her to her feet, crushing her to his chest and whispering, “God, oh God,” over and over in her ear. Whether he was cursing or praying, she didn’t know. For a second, her fingers curled into his coat, overwhelmed with the sensation that everything would come right—then the cold metal of the bullet in one hand reminded her of all the things that were very far from right, and her resolve became as unyielding as the thing in her hand.

Pushing him away, she brushed down her dress to hide slipping the bullet into her pocket and held her arms out for his inspection. “There, you see?” she said briskly. “I’m fine enough; so is Sylvia. Only we’re dreadfully tired, Fitz, and we’d like to go home.”

His answer came automatically, courteously, accompanied by his hand wrapped around her wrist and his thumb brushing over the throb of her pulse. “Of course.”

The ‘goodbye’s and ‘thank you’s passed in a bit of a blur—even Aaron’s, who certainly deserved better than she could offer. She hoped Sylvia managed to express the appropriate thanks for them both. Then they bundled into Rosalind under the heavy motoring blankets, Sylvia in the rumble seat and she up front with Fitz, and sped through the quiet early morning. At a stoplight, Fitz turned to speak over his shoulder. “Miss Forbes, I hope it’s all right, my mother’s made up one of the rooms in our house for you. I thought you might not want to be alone tonight, or answer to your landlady or anything. You can go in with Jemma or me tomorrow, if you like.”

“Thank you, Mr. Fitz-Simmons. That’s very thoughtful.”

The light turned from STOP to GO. None of them spoke again. Their own thoughts, Jemma suspected, were loud enough.

Jean had been up waiting for them, and she took Sylvia under her wing within a minute of their arrival. “Don’t worry, pet,” she told Sylvia, meaning the words for Jemma too, “you’ll get a good rest tonight, and everything will look better in the morning. There isn’t a problem a good night’s sleep can’t make seem less hopeless.” Watching Jean gently but firmly drive Sylvia upstairs to a guest room, Jemma wished with all her heart she could believe it.

Fitz came up beside her—silent, not touching her, merely asking a question by his presence. In answer, she followed the path Sylvia and Jean had just taken and led the way to his bedroom, knowing he would be right behind her without looking back. Standing in the middle of the room, she clutched her arms tightly across her stomach and waited until she heard the key scrape in the lock, staring at their bed in an attempt to hold back her furious tears. She was only partially successful.

The floorboards creaked behind her, followed by the thump of Fitz’s shoes. Then, walking carefully, he came around and sat heavily on the end of the bed. “Jemma,” he said quietly, the kind of quiet that meant he wanted to shout, “help me to understand.”

“What, exactly, do you not understand, Fitz.”

“You and Sylvia,” he said slowly, “went, with her fiancé, to a meeting of—not the Soviet Club?” She shook her head to the negative and he went on. “But something like it. And while you were there, it was raided by the police and the two of you somehow escaped, only to run into another policeman, but you managed to convince him you were innocently visiting a friend and had him escort you to Aaron’s house.”

“Quite a nice summary of the salient points. It doesn’t appear you need my help at all.” Not with this, apparently not with anything.

He finally heard the gall flavoring her words and responded accordingly, his pitch striking upwards—but just a hint. “I do, actually. Because I do not understand _why_ you were at a secret meeting of the not-Soviet Club to begin. Did what’s-his-face not tell you, or—”

“We knew what we were doing. At least, we knew where we were going; the raid came as a bit of a shock to us. We rather thought the police meant to ignore our warnings.”

“What warnings?”

She dropped the bomb inelegantly, not caring enough to be careful. “That the group had designs against the British government and an alarming knowledge of chemical explosives.”

“What!” Fitz gaped at her, no longer able to retain his exhausted patience, and pushed onto his feet. “Chemical explo—you mean that list on my desk? Jemma, in the name of all things holy—”

“We did our best to put it in the proper hands,” she continued ruthlessly, “but when they refused to take it we really had no choice.”

Pacing away from her with one hand in his hair, he stopped and looked back over his shoulder. “No choice but to infiltrate them like plainclothes tecs and hope they didn’t become suspicious?”

“Clearly.”

He scoffed, turning to face her. “You might’ve—I’m just tossing out a suggestion, here—told me? I’m not without contacts, I could have—”

“Done exactly what I _didn’t_ want you to do, what you’re doing now—”

“Pardon me, what I’m doing now is trying to respect your intelligence and good judgment and _not_ read you the Riot Act—”

“—insert yourself into a situation you have no reason to be in and make it worse than it already is!”

“Make it worse?” The question rang out in the room, and, with a quick glance at their mantle clock, he stomped over to her and lowered his voice. Somehow, the quieter tone only allowed him to put more force behind his words. “And why exactly,” he asked, his few inches of height looming above her, “are you and Sylvia better equipped to act _in locum_ the police?”

She glared up at him, refusing to be cowed. “Don’t throw Latin at me, Fitz, we both know you don’t know as much as you should.”

“God forbid I have more knowledge than you do, apparently. That list was on my desk _weeks_ ago. How long have you known about this without saying anything?”

As they stared at each other over the small expanse of carpet and the gulf of secrets and lies, Jemma almost choked on a laugh—a hysterical one, most certainly, that would escape sounding cruel and humorless, but a laugh all the same. All she had wanted from the very instant she left the Soviet Club was to tell Fitz everything; well, here she had her heart’s desire. Never had she imagined the scene would play out at half-past one in the morning with lights and eyes blazing, but with nothing to stop her and nothing left to lose she would be a fool to allow the opportunity to pass by. Never let it be said that Jemma Fitz-Simmons was a fool.

“About the bombs?” she said, as light and clear as a prism, “those only a fortnight or so when Sylvia told me. I’ve known there was trouble with Mark’s friends, oh, _ages_ —I mean, it was clear something wasn’t quite serene the Monday we went to the Soviet Club, but when we went to the New Guy Fawkes Club that Thursday after you and I went to the cinema”—he squawked, color rising high on his cheekbones—“well, we could hardly pretend Charles didn’t have something dastardly in mind, with all his talk of being snakes and biting the people trampling them. Sylvia overheard about the bombs when she went back without me, but when we went back last week for more information, Charles—he’s their leader, Fitz, or it least he was as I fervently hope they’ve been dismantled now—devoted all his time not spent pouring poison into people’s ears trying to win me for their cause—whether for my money or my chemistry skills, I couldn’t say, only he was very clear I not tell you anything about it. I suppose that doesn’t matter much now, does it? That was when we went to the police, but, as I said, they didn’t seem to care. Not even my father’s special recommendation.”

“You told—” He cut himself off, snapping his mouth shut and pressing his lips together tightly to dam back whatever he had been about to say. Good, she thought savagely, let him be as angry as she was, as confused and hurt. They were always a perfect pair. He stared at the ground between his toes, the muscles in his neck taut, and his jaw worked back and forth a minute before he regained enough control to ask a different question. “You’ve gone there how many times?”

She had to stop and think; each night had been a dozen, and the horror of this visit blotted out the rest. “Tonight was three,” she said finally. “Third time’s the charm.”

“Three times.” He nodded, still not looking at her. “Three times you’ve gone to a place full of people who want to overthrow the government with chemical explosives without telling me a single thing about it.”

“Charles did say—”

The heat of his eyes would have burnt up the end of her sentence, even if he hadn’t run over it like a motorbus. “That was the second time. You just said. We went to the cinema two weeks ago—I remember, because it was a Wednesday and I had a meeting the next night about a project I finished up last Wednesday before we went to see Larry. Why didn’t you tell me anything in between?”

She hadn’t even begun to consider when he had created the little vial of terror in her pocket, but of course, it must have been recently or it couldn’t contain the Snow White solution. So all those excuses—the meeting he couldn’t move, the Saturday at the office, the project that kept them from seeing Larry—how often had he lied to her about what he was doing? How many times had held her off with one hand and gestured Whitehall forward with the other?

Her lack of response gave him all the answer he apparently needed, because he threw one hand up in the air and backed away, all but shouting “did you even think to tell me once? Or were you so confident you could manage it that you didn’t stop to consider I might like to know the danger you were putting yourself into?”

“If you had only _asked_ ,” she hissed, “instead of being too busy with your own secret projects—”

“When have we _ever_ waited to be asked to tell the other person what we’re doing?”

“When have we _ever_ not asked? When Sylvia asked me not to tell you unless there was a direct question I assumed it would be an easy promise to keep, but you just let me go without caring where or why—too preoccupied, I assume, with—”

“Oh, secrets for Sylvia, can’t betray her trust,” he said acidly, the words spitting scorching holes in the carpet. “But me, your partner and husband, keep secrets from me all you like.”

Every single nerve in her body stood on end. Tears ran down her cheeks like lava, erupting in a molten stream at the sheer injustice of the accusation. “I’m not the only one, am I, Fitz?”

“What the hell does that mean?”

In response, she dug out the bullet and held it up, the magma hardening her face to stone as she watched the blood drain from his. Her heart, buried under layers of steaming anger, still felt a spike of ice go through it. She hadn’t realized she’d still been hoping she had come to the wrong conclusion, that someone had stolen both their work and he didn’t know—but that was all done now. He knew exactly what the hell she meant.

Fitz stared at the impossible bullet in her hand, taking a step back to keep his feet underneath him. How could—that shouldn’t be—it had only been a week since he sent the blueprints to Smith, hardly enough time to test, much less produce—but it was quite clearly his work and, oh Lord, hers too, the theoretical made actual and contained in one tiny two inch parcel. The bullet itself may be non-lethal, but he knew full well a bomb had just gone off. “Where did you get that?” he asked hoarsely.

She flipped it between her fingers, casual as anything, but he heard the careful control she kept of her tone. “It hit Sylvia in the shoulder. That mesh works well to prevent penetration but one does wonder what a close-range shot would do. I expect the casing would turn it rather quickly from Sleeping Death to the ordinary kind.”

Still fuzzy with disbelief, he thought he must have misheard her. “What are you talking about?”

“This, Fitz!” Giving up the pretense of nonchalance, she tightened her fist around the bullet and shook them both at him. “This capsule from one of your guns and filled with my Snow White solution that the police were firing indiscriminately into the crowd! Or do you not recognize it after Whitehall got their hands on it?”

“Snow White solution—you mean that thing you’ve been working on with your rats?” At her nod, he felt what little blood remained in his head drain away. “No, that’s not possible. It was supposed to be your poison gas antidote. For use in emergency situations. I never gave them—I made sure of every notebook they saw, I don’t know how they could have gotten that work. Jemma, please, you must believe I never would have let them have something so volatile.”

She crossed her arms in front of her, her hands in white knuckled fists. “It doesn’t seem like something you’d do. But then, neither does giving Whitehall my work without telling me after explicitly promising to do so, and that appears to have happened, so you’ll forgive me if I am a trifle uncertain.”

He hated that stiff, formal tone, a defensive line stronger than the Maginot. He didn’t even deserve it. He would never attack her—he had only got into this damn situation by protecting her, for God’s sake. Surely she could understand that. “I wanted to tell you, but I couldn’t.”

“Oh, I see, so it’s all right for you and not for me.”

The sharp reminder of the first part of their conversation stopped his explanation dead in its tracks, and he snapped back as though he had broken his toe against a brick: “Yes, because there’s a wee bit of difference between keeping a secret for a friend and keeping one because your government orders you to!”

“Yes, and there’s a ‘wee bit’ between keeping a secret and _stealing my work_.”

This time, his reflexes deserted him and he simply stood there, staring, sucking in breath as though she had punched him. It rather felt like she had. _Stealing_ her work? How could she accuse him of such a thing—Whitehall, certainly, but him? Their work was sacred, the only thing in life they valued nearly as much as each other; their commitment to it predated their relationship and formed one of their foundational similarities. She could hardly have insulted him more if she had accused him of being unfaithful to her.

She continued ruthlessly. “I meant to tell you as soon as I could, as soon as the danger was past—but you were _never_ going to tell me about this, were you?”

Still catching his breath, he said the first thing that came to mind: “That’s entirely different and you know it. My work was _classified_ , Jemma. Telling you would be _treason_.”

“Isn’t the Project classified? Aren’t a half-dozen other things we’ve worked on together?” Damn her logic, of course they were, and that wasn’t even why he had kept quiet anyway. Seeing his unwilling acquiescence, she smirked before assuming the expression of a saint on a pillar. “Even so, Fitz, I tried to understand and not have hurt feelings, to let you do what you thought was best—”

Her pointed accusations would find no purchase here. He wasn’t a little boy pouting because he had been left out of a game; he had every right to be upset that she had willfully put herself in danger and not told him a single word of it. “Thank you very much for that trust in me. It’s good to know it goes far enough for _that_ at least.”

“Too far, it seems, since you abused it so.”

“I did,” he said through clenched teeth, “the best that I could.”

“The best you could do was hand my research over to Whitehall lock, stock, and barrel, and hope I never found out about it?”

“At least I wasn’t cavorting with traitors and almost getting myself arrested or killed!”

The saintly patience dropped away and she became an avenging goddess, Minerva coming down in her chariot with her father’s lightning bolts over her shoulder. “You can be as angry with me as you like and I still won’t say I was wrong. And even if I _was_ wrong, it wouldn’t absolve you of guilt. Fitz, I can’t believe you did this. I’m _furious_.”

He threw both hands up in the air, helpless in his anger. “Well, we’re a matched set then. I’m about half a second away from throwing something.”

“Which will solve everything, I’m sure. In fact, let’s try it now, shall we?” And she put the hand with the bullet above her head, bringing it down with a swift stroke to slam the thing to the carpet between them. It bounced and disappeared, flying away into oblivion. Lane would find it in the morning, Fitz thought, and wondered if that was a hanging offence too, and told himself that his life was already crashing about his ears, so what did one more thing matter?

“Damn,” Jemma said, and the curse sounded twice as wrong coming from her mouth, “it didn’t help at all. In fact I rather think nothing will. They say never to let the sun go down on your anger, but as I didn’t become angry until after the sun went down I think I have a little allowance, don’t you?”

“So what?” he asked as he watched her flounce to her side table and pull open the drawer. “We’re just going to go to bed and hope things look better in the morning? My mother is only generally right.”

Taking a book from the drawer, she shoved it shut sharply. “You’ll go to your bed, and I’ll go to mine.”

He gaped, needing a second to understand. “In the other room? There’s books everywhere.”

“So I’ll move them.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

She stopped with her hand on the knob to the bathroom. “This whole evening has been ridiculous—a farce, in fact.” Then, putting her shoulder to the door, she almost turned to face him, shut her eyes, and winced, pressing at a spot just above her eyebrow. “I’m so tired, Fitz. I can’t do this at present. Please, don’t follow me.”

She disappeared into the bathroom and shut the door firmly behind her. Fitz waited until he heard the second door, the one between their new library and the bathroom, shut and latch as well. Then, giving into the impulse he had been pushing back since he heard Jemma’s tremulous voice over the phone, he strode to his dressing table and swept everything off it in one resounding crash. It was loud enough to cover the noise of his cursing. It did not stop him from feeling the tears rolling down his face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Phew. Everybody okay?
> 
> No one probably remembers it, but what Aaron says is actually "matok" and it means "sweetheart" in Hebrew. Jemma wouldn't know how to spell it, though.
> 
> More next week!


	26. Peace For Our Time

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a super long one, guys. Fair warning, you may want to read it in two sittings—if so, there's a natural break a third of the way through or so.

Fitz awoke the next morning to Lane’s puttering, feeling empty and lost without quite knowing why. Staring at the ceiling through eyes that seemed to not want to open, he tried to pinpoint the cause: had he had a nightmare? No, he would have startled himself awake, or Jemma—

The night before came roaring back, explaining his swollen eyelids and the pristine pillow beside him. So she had really stuck it out all night in the other room, then, leaving him to toss and turn into the early morning, and she would be gone to the lab by now. “Lane?” he asked croakily, throat raspy with the shouting and leftover tears, “did Mrs. Fitz-Simmons leave any messages for me?”

Lane’s voice floated out from the bathroom. “No sir. Did you expect one?”

“No. I suppose not.” What could she possibly say? Even “You are utterly right and I am terribly wrong” wouldn’t change what had happened. If she had some explanation—but what explanation could he accept? The storm in his stomach wouldn’t go away just by being sorry. Scrubbing at his eyes with the heels of his hands, he heaved himself into a sitting position despite his overwhelming wish to pull the covers over his head and pretend nothing had happened. Unfortunately, it only _felt_ as though the world should stop turning. “May I have the morning papers?”

“The _morning_ papers, sir?”

“Yes,” he said irritably as Lane came out of the bathroom in some agitation, “the morning papers. The fact that I’ve never read them before shouldn’t mean I never will, does it?”

Agreeing that the conclusion did not follow the proposition, Lane picked his way respectfully through the minefield of flung clothes and broken bottles without even a silent reproach and was gone. Fitz drank his tea with a glower. Unable to understand how things had gone so horribly wrong, incapable of deciding which of the warring emotions in his chest deserved the upper hand, he grasped desperately for facts. Whatever had happened last night, the papers would have full details—especially if they truly had foiled a plot against the government, as Jemma claimed. He imagined that news would shout from every page. And if he had more facts, perhaps he could begin to make sense of it.

But when Lane finally brought the papers, crumpled and vaguely damp, Fitz had to discard several pages trumpeting yet another meeting between Chamberlain and Hitler, this one including Mussolini and Daladier. Another day, that news would be worth worrying over, but today he couldn’t be bothered. Nothing on the fourth or fifth pages, nothing on the tenth—nothing, in fact, on any page at all, no matter how often he turned them over. His hands were black with ink before he remembered: it had happened late last night, no doubt past the deadline for the morning papers. He would have to wait for evening.

Sulking through his now cold bath, throwing on his clothes, making his way to the office like a cyclone, he found his mood grow blacker and blacker the more he mused. In the absence of new information, he would have to sort himself out with only what she offered, none of which would improve on further contemplation. According to her own admission, she had willfully put herself in danger and intentionally not told him because she had, first, not wanted him to muck it up and second, promised Sylvia she wouldn’t. What more was there to be said? She took her path and left him to follow his own without informing him they had reached a crossroad. More, she had invited Sylvia and, apparently, her father to be her traveling companions, even though that role ought to be filled by him—not because it was his right, but because he wanted to always be with her, wherever she went. He thought it had been the same for her. Apparently not.

“Good morning, sir.”

Fitz looked up at Andrews sharply, having made his way to his private office without realizing it. “Oh, Andrews. Hullo. Has, er, has my wife rung?”

He didn’t know whether he was disappointed or relieved by Andrews’s negative response. One hand on the receiver, Andrews asked, “did you want me to phone her lab, sir?”

“No, Andrews, thank you. And if she does ring please tell her I’m in a meeting. No, that I’m unavailable.”

If Andrews had been a person and not a machine, he would have raised his eyebrows. “Very good, sir.”

 _In a meeting_ would have been a lie; _unavailable_ was not. He certainly was not available for a second round of their row, which was where any conversation would end. Her deliberate silence told him as much. They discovered early on that their deep gratitude for the other person’s existence tended to overwhelm any negative feelings—petty quibbles vanished with a quip, more serious disagreements required an apology but not much else—making it difficult to stay angry even when he wanted to. If she wasn’t speaking to him, she didn’t want to make up yet. And so much the better, Fitz thought as he let himself into the office and closed the door behind him. He was still too upset to call it pax, too.

Resolutely ignoring their beaming faces overlooking the tea things, he fixed himself a cup and flung himself into his chair, grateful for the first time that this beastly position kept him so busy. A day full of tedious appointments and mind-numbing meetings sounded like the perfect way to keep his brain from its continuing its relentless, burning ruminations. Soon enough the phone would ring and he would have no time to think about Jemma’s deliberate perfidy. To stop his mental indigestion, he’d almost welcome an all-day board meeting.

But no such salvation appeared. He drank his tea in silence, then had another cup, staring out the window watching pigeons swoop by and envying them their happy ignorance. Then, the phone remaining silent, he rolled up his sleeves and got down on his hands and knees to ascertain everything was in proper working order. Finding it so, he crawled back to the desk and picked up the receiver. “Andrews, I only meant you to hold my wife’s calls.”

“There have been no calls, sir.”

“None at all! Why not?”

“It’s Thursday, sir. Your diary is empty today.”

Of course, Thursday. Their day to play in the lab, or skive off early and run away, or take a long and leisurely tea with his door bolted—in short, their day to selfishly enjoy the other person’s company without reference to anyone or anything else. And it had been Jemma’s idea! He snorted at the irony. Well, today she could make use of it by running around with Sylvia as she had done last night and likely every other time she had made an excuse to change their plans. Bitterly, he cast his mind back over the last few weeks, calling up each instance and wondering. No wonder she hadn’t made the progress in the lab she usually did. She had been too busy acting the hero, trying to singlehandedly save England like a modern day Joan of Arc—only of course that was France, but the principle was the same. And look what happened to Joan: caught and questioned and burned at the stake. Had Jemma considered that when she hared off into danger? And what would Joan of Arc’s husband have done if she had gone off on crusade without telling him?

The image of Jemma’s body, limp and pale, sprung to mind without his permission, and he had to cling to the edge of the desk as he shook his head quickly to get rid of it. It _hadn’t_ happened. He had done his part to keep it from coming true and by the sheer grace of God—Fitz gave credit where credit was due—she hadn’t managed it either, no matter how foolishly she behaved. He had nothing to be afraid of in that respect any longer. No, if his wretched brain insisted on spinning out the worst possible future, it ought to consider one in which Jemma lived and breathed and wanted nothing to do with him. That was altogether a more likely prospect.

And at least in that future she was alive.

He shoved back from his desk and bit his tongue, savagely glad to taste the sudden rush of warm iron, before stomping to the side table after something much stronger than tea.

Somehow, he got through the rest of the day. After another hour he had the bright idea of designing something for his own amusement, something wholly his own for no other reason than because he could, and the resulting project offered enough distraction that the appearance of Andrews in the doorway surprised him. He looked up from the blueprints, now bathed in the orangey glow of the desk lamp, and tried to adjust his eyes. “Sorry, Andrews, you could have gone ages ago.”

“Yes, sir. It’s no trouble. I only wanted to know if you had anything for me to do before I left.”

“No, thank you. I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Very good sir.”

“Andrews!”

His secretary came back quickly, almost as if he expected the question. “Yes sir.”

“Did my wife try to ring at all today?”

“No, sir.”

“Not even to see if I was coming home for dinner?”

Andrews’s eyes brimmed with sympathy. “No, sir.”

So that was that, then. Fitz nodded quickly and returned to his blueprints, trying to retain some dignity by pretending to be very busy, and Andrews hovered for only a second before believing him and disappearing. The lift doors creaked open and crashed closed, followed by the groaning gears Fitz could never silence no matter how much he tinkered. Before it reached the ground floor, he had abandoned his blueprints and fled to his club.

A solitary, unsatisfactory—unsatisfactory because solitary—dinner later, he went to the club’s reading room in search of the evening papers. Surely by now they would be able to provide him with answers. Not the ones he sought, perhaps, but answers all the same. Sure enough, the paper abandoned on the nearest table offered exactly the information he needed, directly under an article about the latest proceedings from Munich:

NEW GUNPOWDER PLOT FOILED

Late Night Raid Rounds Up Secret Society

> GOLDERS GREEN—About eleven o’clock on Wednesday nigh, the Metropolitan Police under the command of Captain Arthur Cuff led a daring raid on the secret lair of an unnamed anarchist society. This society, while unattached to any political party, nevertheless had a membership encompassing all ranks and classes and a well-organized, fiendish plot. Having gained through nefarious means a vast quantity of dangerous chemicals, certain members of the society engaged in the production of explosive weapons, namely bombs. Other members were then intended to detonate these devices in the fashion of the IRA at several major railway stations and bus routes. It is believed that the society intended to place the blame for these despicable attacks on Mr. Mosely’s Fascist Party. The detrimental effect such a identification would have on the Prime Minister’s present negotiations with Herr Hitler cannot be overstated.

“Dear God,” Fitz said under his breath, and would have crossed himself if he hadn’t been raised staunchly Presbyterian. When he had leveled those accusations at Jemma he had been speaking purely from panic, nearly frightened to death by her late-night call and the working of his fevered imagination. Even after she told him what she suspected, he hadn’t taken in the entirety of what it meant, too overwhelmed by what it meant between them to consider the broader consequences. Bombs in London! Bombs credited to the Fascists, who were already viewed with concern by the majority of the British public! That would swing the nation’s mood dramatically, no doubt resulting in a suspicion of any Fascist nations, including both Germany and Italy whose leaders were, at this moment, ensconced cozily with Chamberlain at Munich. Chamberlain’s stated policy of treating with Hitler—good lord, he’d either have to give that up and take the nation to war or continue and alienate the people. Either way, a vote of no confidence seemed inevitable. And what then? Who would gain power? Jemma hadn’t simply accidentally taken up with a radical offshoot of the Soviet Club; she had stumbled into a group hell-bent on bringing down the government and not caring overmuch who they hurt in the process. His dinner turned to an icy lump in his stomach. So much for his imagination running away with him. It hadn’t gone far enough.

Folding the paper less than neatly, he breathed heavily through his nose once or twice before reeling to the club’s bar, where he ran into a man he hadn’t liked very much at school and used their meeting as an excuse to consume enough whisky to upset his stomach but not enough to make him tipsy. And then he dragged home, more than ready for this horrible day to be over.

His mother knitted in the drawing room with only the wireless and a roaring fire for company. “Jemma went to bed early,” she answered his silent question. “She said she had a headache.”

Concern leapt up by reflex, but he shoved it back down and leaned his head against the smooth wood of the doorjamb. “I’ve got one too. And a bit of a bellyache.”

“Mmm.” She counted her stitches, then flipped the garment around without looking at him. “Is everything all right between you two?”

“No.”

She nodded. “I’ll pray it is soon.”

“It might require an act of God to come straight, Mam.” He sighed heavily. “Good night.”

* * *

 

He woke up the next morning, alone, with the slightly queasy feeling of never having slept at all. Only that couldn’t be possible, because he distinctly recalled several different but equally terrifying nightmares, all starring Jemma, most featuring his unsuccessful attempts to save her from a variety of sinister figures and their wide range of incendiary devices. Once—the worst of them—he had been successful only for her to push him away, but in the vast majority he failed and had to stand, frozen but screaming, as she disappeared behind a wall of flame. _Marvelous_ , he thought as he pushed back the covers, he had been seeking a little variety in his nightmares.

Not able to face another day like yesterday, he rung Andrews up before leaving the house and informed him he would be taking the train out to visit MI’s suburban laboratories.

“Very good, sir. Did you wish me to inform them of your arrival?”

“Ah, if you think it’s necessary. I haven’t got anything planned; I’m only going to wander about. Have I got any appointments to be aware of?”

“No sir.” The line hissed and popped. “And are you available, sir, should someone being trying to reach you?”

He answered without thinking, too exhausted from his sleepless nights and unstoppable brain to care about much of anything. And dash it, he missed his wife. Even arguing with her would be better than another day of silence. “Yes, Andrews, I rather think I am. Send any calls through if you have to hunt me to Birmingham.”

He had intended to sleep on the train, but for some reason that morning the first class carriages were full to bursting and buzzing like a beehive, leaving Fitz no choice but to stare out the window and try to ignore the grim men in suits all around him who looked up from their papers only to discuss the contents in hushed, worried tones with their neighbors. Munich again, Fitz expected, until he heard the man across from him say “what I’d like to know is how they let it come to this point to begin? If they knew about the thefts—”

“Any number of reasons,” his companion said, “don’t you remember the drug busts of ’33? No, what worries me are these new crowd-controlling tools. How did they manage to detain a roomful of people without resorting to weapons? Something’s rotten there.”

Fitz had a sneaking suspicion he could answer the man’s question. “Pardon me,” he said, “but what are you talking about?”

The men looked at him like he had asked them who the King was. “Ah, Macpherson, isn’t it?” the second man said, not waiting for Fitz to correct him. “We’re discussing this Second Gunpowder Plot. More information in the morning papers, you know, and it’s worrisome. Here, have my paper.”

He handed it over and Fitz tumbled into the article with growing horror, letting the men’s conversation return to so much droning. Sloughing off the article’s flowery language, the following facts remained:

  1. The authorities had been aware of this merry band for some time.
  2. Recently, covert communication through ads and personals in a variety of papers had become more alarming.
  3. The authorities had then taken steps to deal with the growing threat.
  4. These steps included putting the best minds in the nation on the development of new crowd-controlling tools.
  5. Due to the use of these tools, the police had been successful in detaining and charging the vast majority of the villains, who were now awaiting proper prosecution.



That was him, then. His work. His and Jemma’s work, really, taken from them and used without their knowledge in ways they had never intended.

Fitz came to the conclusion with some amount of resignation, having very little left in his emotional reservoir. Then his work had always been meant for offensive use against internal threats, not as a last resort defensive measure as Smith had told him. Attempting to play on his patriotism, putting the screws to him with his fear for Jemma’s safety, they had neatly manipulated him into designing them the next evolution of tear gas. The entire weapon existed to dispense the solution they had stolen from Jemma against this group of—admittedly—very dangerous people. And she had been horrified by it. Why? What had the Snow White solution done? Try as he might, he couldn’t recall if he had ever heard, but he remembered seeing the film with Jemma and suspected it had nothing to do with whistling or yodeling. The man across from him, he thought, had every right to be concerned.

The question ate at him as he wandered the laboratories, somehow managing not to snap at every scientist who spoke to him. Much as he disliked his own work being used in a way he had never intended, he worried more about what he had enabled them to do with Jemma’s. He would have made them whatever they asked to keep her safe and he knew it, but she had much higher standards for her work and would have sharply forbidden such an untested solution being used on anyone, for no matter what reason. Whatever had happened to those people, the responsibility belonged solely to him. And so must the blame, was there any to divvy out.

And yet, he realized as he examined the new synthetic fabrics with their more vibrant vegetable dyes, he couldn’t be sorry. He had done it for Jemma, and she was safe, and their work together had helped foil a plot that would have killed a great many people and set the country on its ear, and what exactly was there to feel badly about in any of that? He had done the right thing. Even now, he couldn’t see another way.

Somehow, though, after several hours of repeating it to himself over and over, his conclusion became less resolved and more regretful—less “there wasn’t another way” and more “why wasn’t there another way?” Right or wrong, what he had done had hurt Jemma desperately, and that knowledge cut him to the bone. Even in the middle of it he had known the impossible choice he had made; should he be so surprised that what he foresaw came true? No. And it was no good saying he didn’t have to tell her because she had kept secrets from him. She was right: the two events, for all they had crashed horribly, were distinct. Individually, they had each decided to behave in a similar way. For different reasons, apparently. But his hurt had dulled enough to acknowledge that there might be more to her decision than he had allowed her so far.

And so, when the phone was brought to him on the floor and a quiet voice on the other end said “Fitz, will you come home, please?” he answered immediately. “Of course I will, Jemma, as soon as the trains can get me there.”

Standing in front of his bedroom door— _their_ bedroom, still, always—he found his hands shaking and his heart fluttering. He hadn’t been this nervous since that night in Venice, the first time it had been _their_ bedroom. For all their dissimilarities, the situations shared common features. He hadn’t known what to expect then, and he didn’t know what to expect now, but he knew with every fibre of his being that whatever happened would change their relationship forever. Willing his hands to still, he rapped out their special knock.

“Come in, Fitz.”

He entered practically on tiptoe, not even all the way in before he turned to shut the door behind him. From her place at the end of their bed, Jemma watched his shoulders rise and fall with a deep, steadying breath. “Sorry it was so long,” he said without turning around. “The city’s busy. People are flocking to Downing Street.”

Busily planning and discarding what she would say, she hadn’t noticed the time passing. However long it had been hadn’t been enough time to find the perfect words, anyway, and the imperfect ones couldn’t be relied upon to open the conversation. Certainly not when he still gripped the doorknob like it would keep him from falling into an abyss. “The Prime Minister’s returned?” she said instead, entirely unconcerned with the answer but unable to think of anything else.

“Apparently so. Flew in this afternoon and told the papers he secured ‘peace with honor’. That’s what they said in the train, at least. We’ll believe it when we see it, I suppose.” At last he turned to her, every part of his body still as stone besides his trembling hands and the quick rise and fall of his chest. “So,” he said, “how’ve you been?”

About the same as he had, if the red lines and black circles rimming his eyes in a chalky pale face provided any indication. Had he slept at all? Had he eaten? She clutched her arms more tightly around her stomach and closed her eyes just long enough to dam the questions back. “Not very well, I’m afraid. And you?”

“Rotten.”

“You look it.” As soon as the words left her lips she wished them back again. That was no way to begin either. But he waved off her attempted explanation before crossing his arms across his chest in a mirror of her own pose. She tried not to interpret it as a sign.

“Well,” he said, “I’ve been walking around like half a person the last few days, so that’s only to be expected. I hope. . .” He shook his head and fell silent. She wished she could guess what he meant to say, but with his eyes trained firmly on the carpet she had no way to discern which, if any, of the thronging desires beating their wings in her own chest wanted to take flight in his. But he hoped, and he had come when she asked, and that at least meant something. She waited to see if he had anything else to say. She craved his help to know how to begin.

After a silent minute, his gaze darted up, meeting hers and sliding past towards the bedpost before coming back again, almost defiantly. “You asked me to come, which means you’ve got a speech planned, haven’t you? I’ll begin if you like, but my remarks aren’t prepared.”

“Not a speech. Not a plan, exactly. It’s only, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about what happened.”

“I haven’t either.”

“We were both overwrought, and I think that kept us—both of us—from explaining ourselves quite as well as we should have. At least, I didn’t explain myself very well, did—” He picked up his cue and shook his head, and she nodded, a spark of relief flaring in her chest. “And we really ought to have all the facts before we draw any conclusions. It’s only the reasonable thing to do.”

Inscrutable, he shoved his hands in his pockets. “We wouldn’t be good scientists if we made up our minds ahead of the facts.”

“Exactly.”

He took a small step forward, swaying on his toes like he wanted to take another one but didn’t dare. “How did you think we would begin?”

A wave of gratitude rushed through her. When she imagined this conversation he had been belligerent, demanding, impatient—not very much like himself at all, actually, but a phantom-Fitz, made unfamiliar by the enormous and uncharacteristic falseness. But this was her Fitz, still, kind to the bone, and it gave her the courage to ask the question that had haunted her for three days: “I know that you’re angry with me as well, and I’m willing to answer any questions you ask. But first, Fitz, please, I need to understand why you broke your word and didn’t tell me that Whitehall was developing weapons using my work.”

She ducked her head and held her breath—partly to keep back her tears, partly to allow him the space to speak and be heard. Whatever his reasons, better to know them at the beginning; to mend this, they had to raze it to the foundations and build, somehow, from there. Despite her best efforts, a tear rolled down her nose and dropped onto her wringing hands. The next fell, unexpectedly, onto his. Gently, he wrapped his impossibly warm hands around her cold ones; deliberately, he knelt before her; quietly, he butted his forehead against hers. Only his voice was urgent and forceful, cracking on his words: “They told me if I didn’t, something bad would happen to you. I couldn’t let that happen.”

She jerked back, separating their heads but not their hands as she searched his face for a hint of exaggeration. He wouldn’t lie—even in this disaster he hadn’t done so—but how could he be telling the truth? This wasn’t Russia or Burma; the British government didn’t threaten their citizens. But the only expression beyond grim determination was a desperate plea. “Fitz,” she said shakily, “that’s—”

“Ridiculous, I know.” A storm came over his face and he clutched her hands tighter, his jaw matching the action of his fingers. “We’re a civilized country, we don’t rely on threats, but it’s true all the same. I never would have done it otherwise, Jemma, I swear on my life. But I couldn’t risk yours.”

All at once, her bones turned to jelly and she slumped against the bedpost, the indignation and anger that had been buoying her the last two days swept away in a flood of truth. However impossible his claim, accepting its veracity made sense of everything. All her tortured thinking had been entirely unable to provide a believable reason for Fitz to betray both her and their relationship so dramatically; every attempt squirmed messily in her hands, out of his character or neglectful of the facts. Not this one. Somehow, she found it more likely that the government had resorted to ruling by threat and fear than that Fitz had either selfishly or stupidly hurt her without cause. And if he believed her to be in danger, what wouldn’t he do? She had ample evidence to prove one’s previously held convictions went up like so much kindling when faced with a threat to the person one loved most in all the world. A strangled laugh rose in her throat, blasting through the rock-hard lump of anger and guilt, and she pulled her hands up to stop it bursting out.

Fitz sat back on his heels like a marionette whose strings had been suddenly cut. Through thin lips he ground out, “I’m glad you find it amusing. I was only scared to death, with Smith’s casual comments about lab accidents and his slimy hands all over your photo. I only woke up in the middle of the night to make sure you were breathing every other night.”

And she had done the same, waking from silent nightmares to watch her hand rise and fall on his chest. She shook her head. “It isn’t that, Fitz.”

In one swift movement, he pushed away from her outstretched hand and to his feet, pacing towards the bare dressing table with his hands on his hips. “I wanted to tell you so many times, but every time I began I saw his crocodile grin—he might have been capable of anything. You can’t know what that’s like.”

“I think I can,” she said.

“No, because there was no way out. Even if I told you and you promised to keep it secret, you’re not very good at lying—you told Dot Huntington-Smith we were trying to have a baby, for goodness’ sake—he would see through you like glass, and it would be my fault.”

“Fitz.” She managed to stand, halving the distance between them with her hands still held out pleadingly. “I do understand. I didn’t disbelieve you, only—oh, Fitz, how did we hurt each other so terribly when all we wanted to do was keep each other safe?”

To her dismay, he turned sharply away and crossed his arms over his chest, his bottom lip jutting out in what could be petulance but she knew meant he was fighting back tears. “Safe from what, exactly? I know Sylvia’s taller than I am and I’m a bit hampered by being a gentleman, but I don’t think she could do me any real harm. Or were you concerned that I’d trip over myself and break something? Since I make bad situations worse.”

The reminder of the words she had flung at him made heat rise up the back of her neck. Fighting the urge to cover it, she balled her hands into fists and pressed her lips together. “That’s not how it was.”

“Really?” he shot back, voice and eyebrows pitching steeply, “how was it, then? Because before you said—”

“I was angry. I didn’t mean—”

“That’s my role in our little quarrels.”

“And I’m never allowed to lose my temper?” Dangerously close, she stopped for a calming breath. “I don’t want to argue, Fitz. Please let me explain.”

“Now you want to tell me?”

“I wanted to tell you all along!”

He kicked at the carpet, not meeting her eyes. “Sylvia, certainly, and your father, and the police, but not me. Now it’s all out, it doesn’t matter if I’m trustworthy or not.”

Her mouth dropped open, and she sputtered a little in her confusion. “Why would you think—it didn’t have anything to do with that. I trust you more than anyone else in the world.”

Whirling on his heel, he tried to push past her. “Trust me to ruin everything?”

She put up both hands like a traffic cop and pressed them to his chest, suddenly fiercely unwilling to let him have his own way unimpeded. He had explained himself; she deserved the same courtesy. Deliberately meeting his startled eyes, she dropped her chin and spoke with all the authority she could muster. “I’ll thank you to stop interrupting and let me explain.”

His breathing sped up under her hands, and she sucked in a breath as his gaze dropped to her mouth. Not the time, she chided silently, not certain if the warning was meant for him or for her. Closing his eyes, he took a deep breath before stepping back to make a _go on_ gesture with one hand. She could hope for a better attitude, but she understood this one. Caught in her own hurt, she hadn’t stopped to consider how deeply she had wounded him, too.

“Do you remember,” she said finally, “when I had the nightmare about the snakes?”

His eyebrows drew together. “Before we went to see Mrs. Osbourne. You said it was something you ate. It wasn’t, though?”

Wincing, she twisted her fingers together. “You were there. In my dream. You had come to rescue me, but the snakes weren’t after me, they were after you—but you didn’t care. You tried to save me even though they were crawling all over you, about to bite.” A chill shivered up her spine at the memory. His hands twitched at his side, but he schooled them into submission. “Charles gave a speech that night. He compared himself and his followers to snakes, waiting to rear and bite people who stepped on them: people like you.”

He frowned. “That’s not what the papers said they meant to do.”

The papers, at once clinical and overdramatic, had done a rotten job of explaining what went on in that tiny, cold-burning room. She read them with wide and horrified eyes, but no surprise. “All that—he didn’t talk about it at first. Not at all, really, until the last night, and he was interrupted before saying much of anything.”

“But that’s nothing,” Fitz said, still scowling, “there’s nothing there to be so afraid of. You could pick up a paper from the gutter that said worse.”

“It’s rather different when you’re hearing it rather than reading it. But if that had been all I might have behaved differently. It wasn’t, though. Fitz, I don’t understand it, but Charles was afraid of you.”

If possible, the wrinkles in his forehead grew even deeper as he took a step back. “Afraid—of me?”

She nodded, seeing the fear flaring in Charles’s eyes. “As soon as he heard my name he was frightened.”

“Of what? I don’t know anyone called Charles. Why would someone I’ve never met be frightened of me?”

“I don’t know. Even still, I don’t know. He was, though, and that made me frightened for you. You said you didn’t know what that man might be capable of doing? I think the papers the last few days prove what Charles might do.”

“So you thought—what?” he asked, his hands flying away from his body in an exaggerated question, his restless energy pushing him to pace as he thought, though he kept his eyes fixed firmly on hers.

“I didn’t know, but I wasn’t willing to find out. How could I risk you?”

He glanced away, his jaw working back and forth, and she knew she had finally broken through. “I trusted you,” she said more quietly, “to behave as yourself, and I knew you would go charging into the fray on a white horse determined to vanquish the dragon, and I was afraid he would eat you. Can’t you understand that, Fitz?”

He did. Even if she couldn’t see the understanding on his face, she trusted his logical abilities; he would hear her intentional echo of his own reason and accept it, dislike it as he may. Pinching the bridge of his nose, he screwed up his face in a grimace. “You still could have told me. I was scared out of my mind, Jemma. If I had known—”

“If you had known?” She scoffed, raising both eyebrows. “Really. You would have been perfectly all right if I had said, ‘Fitz, Sylvia’s fiancé is involved with some highly suspicious people; we think it might be dangerous but we would like you to please stay away’?”

He flushed, pressing his lips together so they puffed up. “So instead you chose to waltz in on your own? I wouldn’t have tried to stop you.”

“Ugh, Fitz!” She threw both hands in the air. “Are you listening to me? I know you wouldn’t have tried to stop me; I know you would have tried to join me. Even if I told you that it was dangerous for you to know or to go, if I was there you would be too, and your own safety be damned. I do know you, Fitz. I had to protect you because you wouldn’t do it yourself.”

“So what, I can’t be angry that you put yourself in so much danger without even telling—”

“Well, I’m still angry you handed over my work to Whitehall without telling me about it, so—”

“I did exactly the same thing you did, and for the same—”

“Which is what I said at the beginning!”

Frustrated, dismayed, and confused, he stopped pacing and turned to her, palms to the ceiling and fingers outstretched to catch any answers that might drop into them. “If we’re agreed that we only did what we did because we love each other, what are we shouting about?”

With his question, all the spinning atoms in all the spinning world came to a halt, and Fitz and Jemma froze in the wide-eyed breathless way one does after the screech of brakes doesn’t end in a crash. Two quick blinks passed as the thought sped between them— _I love you more than anything else_ —and then, without either of them knowing how, they collided in the center of their room, and his hands were at her back and her fingers brushed his cheeks and their lips came together like doing so was their only reason for existence. Fitz held her close with everything he had, grateful beyond measure his worst nightmares hadn’t come true; Jemma wrapped one arm around his shoulders and swayed against him, unsteady and uncertain whether she felt her tears or his under her fingertips. Both, they found when they drew back for breath. Residual anger and worry and fear have that effect when combined with relief and a sneaking, golden sense of joy. Jemma laughed damply, plying her thumb across his cheek in a fruitless attempt to dry it. The tip of her fingernail disarranged his eyelashes.

“Jemma,” he said without opening his eyes, “I’m only angry with you because I love you so much.”

She let her eyes drift shut and her forehead find its resting place against his. “I love you a hundred million times more than I’m angry with you.”

“I’m not going to apologize for trying to keep you safe. But I am sorry for doing it badly, and that you got hurt all the same.”

“I’m sorry too. And not, for the same reasons.”

His mouth tugged up under her thumb and, knowing it was a signal, she opened her eyes to fall headlong into the fathomless oceans that were his. The question she met there could have sprung up from her own.

_Forgive me?_

And the answer followed just as quickly:

 _Of course_.

This time, they couldn’t keep their kiss sweet. They had gone nearly two days without seeing or speaking to each other—the longest they’d been apart since their wedding—and the danger of separation wasn’t quite banished from their minds. Fitz kissed her desperately, taking her in with every one of his senses; he knew her by heart, but somehow it still felt like rediscovery. He never wanted to stop. He probably wouldn’t have, except she gave a yelp and suddenly disappeared from his grasp, already laughing as she fell back onto the bed and he rather ungracefully followed her down. “Not a bad idea,” he mumbled into her neck, sealing it with an open-mouthed kiss and caring not even a little how they got there.

Her laugh rang out, slightly breathless. “An accident! You bumped me into the bed, or my knees went wobbly, or something. Has it always been so springy, Fitz?”

After giving the mattress a cautious bounce, he shrugged and returned to relearning the singular pleasure found in the slope of her shoulder. “S’pose so.”

“The other bed is awful. I didn’t sleep a wink.”

He paused, lifting himself up on his elbows to better see her face. Below him, her mouth held the taut shape that signified she meant more than she said. Smoothing her hair away from her forehead, he thought of his own sleepless nights and kissed her softly. “Wasn’t much better in here.”

“Really?”

He found he couldn’t meet her earnest eyes as he confessed. “I kept having nightmares that you—er, that you weren’t coming back.”

“Oh, Fitz.” Jemma’s heart stuttered a little in its work. “Of course I would come back. Look, I’m here now.” With one hand to his cheek, she directed his attention back to her face, rosy and smiling in the midst of the cloud of her hair against the counterpane. Gently stroking the soft skin in the shadow of his jaw, she bit her lip and considered how best to dispel the doubts that still lurked in his eyes. Where to begin undoing the harm she had caused? She thought of all the things he had said in the heat of their arguments and did her best to trace them back to their source. In the end, the answer came easily. “Sweetheart.”

He roused himself from the contemplation of the place her collarbones met.

Taking a deep breath, she hoped he could hear everything she meant. “You’re the core of my heart, Fitz. There’s no one and nothing more important to me than you are.”

His breath caught. She knew why. Between the two of them, romantic speeches had always been his purview; he found it easy to translate the roiling rush of feelings into words, and the more she felt the more difficult she found it to speak about. He knew what she couldn’t speak aloud—he had told her more than once that she said more with her eyebrows than a whole book of poetry—and so she rarely gave voice to the depth of her love. But this situation demanded absolutely no room for doubt.

Tears prickled in his eyes, and he closed them quickly before any could drop on her. “I feel the same way, Jemma.”

Her other hand came up to mirror the first, cupping his face between them as though it was something precious—as, of course, it was. “I didn’t tell dad anything. I didn’t keep the secret for Sylvia’s sake. I almost quit the entire thing, even knowing the stakes, because I couldn’t bear not to tell you.”

Turning in her grasp, mouth sober, he kissed her palm. “But you wouldn’t have. Not with these stakes. Not even the ones you knew. Me over—”

“No,” she agreed. “But I wanted to.”

He let her words seep into his very soul, feeling the peace and truth of them fill up what he thought were bottomless depths. All his tortured imaginings were nothing but that, false frights as real as a Dracula film. The truth shone out from her steady amber gaze. He was hers and, thank God, she was his, and whatever terrors the world hurled at them would be faced side by side. As far as possible, he thought with a sudden pang, and knew it was his turn. Pushing off his elbows, which were starting to hurt, he moved to sit with his back against the pillows and held out a hand to Jemma to pull her up as well. She kept hold once sitting, placing her head on his shoulder and his hand in her lap between both of hers. “Well, Fitz?”

“I didn’t know,” he said, “that they wanted a weapon. I thought it was only an impractical form of poison gas deterrent.”

“Mm.” She nodded against his shoulder, thoughtful. “And if you had known, what would you have done?”

His mouth fell open to promise strict refusal, but before anything actually escaped he remembered his earlier conviction. Jemma watched the realization flash across his face from her inverted position and knew he had reached the same conclusion she had: their kidnapped brain-child’s potential was too great to deny it existence. Running a finger between the hills and valleys of his knuckles, she continued as though they had spoken aloud. “Even had you been able to refuse, I’m not sure you should have. I did say you could let them see my work if you judged it to be useful.”

“But not without telling you. I didn’t mind doing the work, though Smith gives me the grues, but I hated not being able to tell you.”

She rolled her face to actually look at him. “But what else could you do?”

They pondered it in silence a minute, thoughts travelling different paths to the same destination. Fitz gave voice to it first, hesitant, staring fixedly at their clasped hands. “What if it happens again?”

Jemma sighed, hating her conclusion but guessing from the way Fitz resolutely avoided looking at her that he had come to the same one. If neither of them could find a way around. . . “Then you mustn’t tell me.”

He jerked back enough that her head fell off his shoulder, turning a little and gesturing elaborately with his free hand. “Jemma, no, that’s ridiculous. And wrong, anyway, it’s your work, you should know everything about it.”

“Of course I’d rather know!” she said, matching him, “but if they’re so firm about it, or if you feel it’s unsafe, then you mustn’t. It’s like...” She thought a moment, then settled on, “like a birthday present. We keep those secret, don’t we?”

Fitz frowned, not at all seeing the connection. “There’s a small difference between—”

“Yes, but I don’t tell you because it will be better for you if you don’t know.”

“Yes, but this isn’t a celestial globe or a pair of slippers. It’s your life’s work, Jemma! How can you simply—”

“Because,” she said over him, “I trust you, Fitz. Truly, I do. You won’t resort to that unless you have no other choice—sweet, you’re nearly more protective of my work than I am! I know that you’ll—you’ll do what’s best.”

Despite her brave words, Fitz heard the choke in her voice. He had a lump of his own, formed by the weight of her absolute trust in him—even though he had betrayed her so badly, she not only forgave him but gave him permission to do the same thing again. He did not, he knew with absolute conviction, deserve her. Dropping her hand, he put both arms around her and pulled her to his chest, dusting his lips across her hair and her temple and her cheek as silent seals of his promise. Her hands clutched at his shirt, showing she knew what he meant.

“But it doesn’t seem fair,” he said as his cheek came to rest on top of her head.

“It’s not,” she agreed. “But until women are respected in such roles, what else can we do?”

Struck with a thought, he wriggled a little. “Jemma, what if I named you co-president? Then they’d have no choice—”

Her peal of laughter cut him off. “Fitz! Don’t try to shove your responsibilities off on me. I’m perfectly happy in my lab; I do not want to have to attend meetings or factory visits or fights with the board. I might, someday, accept being a department head.”

“Oh, well, that’s a given,” he said seriously. “But co-president, just think! You wouldn’t want to share that work with me? What happened to being endowed with all my worldly goods?”

“There’s nothing in the marriage ceremony that says I have to accept them all.”

He kissed her forehead, loving the shape of her eyebrows when she laughed, and held her tighter, feeling a little dizzy. He entered this room with no further hope than that they could air their grievances and begin to move towards some reconciliation; now here they sat, reconciled, understanding, forgiven, together. The world, which this morning had been a vale of tears, now appeared bathed in a golden glow—rather like, he realized, that first morning in Venice. Feeling a warm tingle spread from his heart to the very tips of his toes, he ducked his head and captured her mouth joyfully. Jemma joined him just as eagerly, shifting so she sat across his lap, and he would be willing to swear the love between them was tangible.

“Jemma,” he said, pulling her hands away from his face.

She raised an eyebrow.

“The little bullet thing—did it actually work? Because I had my doubts—”

In response, she kissed him resoundingly, and for a very long time.

And then she told him everything he wanted to know, and he told her the same, and they had their dinner in their bedroom, and the maid went in to strip the sheets from the bed in Jemma’s room without being told. And that night, when the Prime Minister stood on the balcony at 10 Downing Street to promise peace and send everyone to bed, Fitz and Jemma were already there, with a deeper peace between them than the Prime Minister could even dream possible.


	27. Out of a Hat

“I’ve been thinking about Sylvia,” Fitz said the next morning over their leisurely breakfast in bed.

Jemma raised one eyebrow, reaching up to brush toast crumbs from the corner of his mouth. “Ought I be jealous?”

“What? Jemma, no, never, I only meant—” Finally seeing through his panic to her smirk, he made a face. “Yes, you’re very amusing. For goodness’ sake don’t frighten me like that, woman. You’ll give me apoplexy.”

“But you’re so adorable when you’re flustered,” she said serenely, and leaned across the breakfast tray to buss the spot the crumbs had been. “Go on then. What about Sylvia?”

“It can’t be very pleasant, what happened. You know, having your fiancé mixed up in a plot to blow up the government. I was only wondering if she’s all right.”

Jemma sighed heavily. “Honestly, Fitz, I don’t know. When we went to the office on Thursday neither of us felt much like talking, and I haven’t seen her since.”

“You haven’t?”

“Well, I bolted the door to my lab,” she said, heat rising in her cheeks as she remembered why. Fitz ducked his head, staring into his tea. That ground still slipped beneath their feet, so she moved on hastily: “But she might have tried to ring and she didn’t. I think she might want to be alone. She’s been so alone all her life, I wonder if she knows another way.”

Picking up a spoon, Fitz gave his egg a few savage raps. “It’s not right, Simmons. If that man wasn’t already in the police’s capable hands it would give me very great pleasure to punch his teeth in.”

It might improve his looks, Jemma thought, then set her tea down hastily. “Mark’s in gaol? How do you know?”

Fitz stopped mid-chew, shoving his egg into one cheek and choking a bit before he could speak. “Isn’t he? I don’t know, only the papers said they detained most of the—er, you know—”

“Traitors?”

“I was going to say ‘plotters’, but traitors will do.”

She took a pensive bite of toast. “I hadn’t even thought of that. I expect you’re right. Oh, poor Sylvia. I ought to ring her.”

“Wait, Jemma.”

As she got to her feet and moved around the bed Fitz reached out to circle her wrist with one hand, arresting her movement towards the phone. Surprised, she looked down questioningly and met only the top of his head as he watched his thumb stroke across her wrist bone. She let him be a moment, content to trace his hair’s natural waves from brow to crown. But then he pulled her hand to his mouth and kissed its back with aching tenderness, and she knew the action hid something else. Presenting him with her palm, she waited until he saluted it before stretching her fingers up to the straight edge of hair by his ear. His eyes met hers through long lashes, too full of feeling for her to interpret.

“It’s only,” he said, “as soon as you pick up the phone it all begins again.”

The ache in his voice sent a matching pang through her chest and she sat back down at the edge of the bed to face him. “We can’t stay tucked away in here forever, Fitz. Much as we’d wish to.”

“I know.” He sighed heavily, rubbing his hands over his face. “It’s not that exactly. I only mean we’re just ourselves in here, just FitzSimmons. Once we go we’re a thousand different things. Someone called me Macpherson on the train yesterday, Jemma.”

A smile flashed across her face and disappeared just as quickly, lost in weighing his words. “But we’re always FitzSimmons, aren’t we? Really, at our heart.”

“That’s how I feel, but not always how I act.”

She heard the self-recrimination in his voice even without seeing the self-loathing in his face, and she took a deep breath to muster all the generosity she could. Though the thought of Whitehall’s dirty paws all over her work still made her sick to her stomach, he didn’t need her to blame him for his part in it. Poor Fitz felt guilty enough already. Rubbing her thumb across his pulse point, she said, “But you always want to, and that’s the same thing.”

“It is not.”

“It _is_ ,” she insisted, and suddenly found herself believing it. “You told me weeks ago that you couldn’t choose me over the whole world and I told you not to. I meant it. I’m not...it’s the situation that made me angry, not you.”

“A bit me,” he said.

“A bit you,” she agreed. “But I forgave you and that’s all done now. Really, Fitz, if I hadn’t been so hysterical about the whole thing—”

“You weren’t hysterical, you were perfectly justified.”

“—I would have realized from the beginning you would never behave like that without good reason. You didn’t have much choice.” She dropped her eyes, her own guilt rising in her throat. Unlike Fitz, she might have taken alternative courses of action and circumvented her part in this falling out. She hadn’t thought so at the time, but perhaps—

“Jemma.” Fitz lifted her chin with one finger, forcing her to meet his warm, steady gaze. “You did what you thought was best. And yes, I’m tempted to hire a private detective to follow you around—”

“You wouldn’t _dare—_ ”

“—just to make sure you don’t get into any trouble—”

“Fitz, if you did—”

“We’ve never been married before,” he said over her protests, suddenly sober. “I’ve never loved anyone the way I love you. We’re bound to make mistakes.”

No doubt. But she had never been very good at not doing things perfectly, even things she didn’t care about; mucking up things that mattered was a hundred thousand times worse. Those failures she toted up and agonized over for years. “I hate making mistakes, Fitz.”

His mouth dropped open in mock astonishment. “You do? My goodness, ring Lord Beaverbrook, it’s the scoop of the year. Who cares what’s happening in Czechoslovakia?”

She laughed in spite of herself—trust him to know when to chaff her out of her own head. Trust him to know what he had done, too, unable to maintain his innocence and slipping into the pleased-with-himself smirk that meant he would be intolerable for the next several minutes. When he got like that she had only one way to combat it, so she utilized it with pleasure. Slightly starry-eyed when she pulled away, he cupped one hand around her nape and twinkled. “So my mother’s right after all.”

“Hmm?”

“There isn’t a problem a good night’s sleep can’t make seem less hopeless.”

“Oh, you think it was the sleeping?” she asked archly, and laughed as she darted out of his grasp to reach for the phone. “I’m ringing Sylvia now, if you don’t mind.”

“I do, very much,” he pouted, “but please notice that I know better than to be jealous of her.”

“I hope so,” she said as she picked up the receiver and pulled the dial all the way around to zero. “Otherwise I might question how many times I have to tell you I care more for you than anything else in the world.”

She said it lightly, without looking at him, half-hiding the depth of her feeling. She didn’t want to bring them crashing back into solemnity after he had so neatly sent them soaring into the rarefied air of blissful ease; if she could have her wished for outcome, they would never speak of the events of the past few days again. Expecting Fitz to share her feelings, she started a little at the gravity with which he responded. “You might have to tell me a few more times,” he said, voice shaky, “but I promise to do my best to believe you from now on.”

Only dimly aware of the operator’s patient voice growing less so on the other end of the line, Jemma found herself stricken silent by the weight of the words that, by themselves, meant very little, but could not be mistaken for anything more than a solemn vow. She put the receiver back down unceremoniously, freeing herself to use both hands to hold his face and meet his earnest gaze with one of her own. Swallowing back the lump in her throat, she found her own promise without having to hunt for the words. “And I promise to believe that you never want to hurt me, whatever circumstances force your hand.”

One corner of his mouth quirked up, and he kissed her thumb before leaning forward to kiss her forehead, her nose, and her mouth. “There,” he said, “sealed with a kiss. No going back on it now.”

She watched his eyes dance, golden glints across fathomless blue depths, and knew her own matched them, pouring out all the gladness and love her heart couldn’t hold. It flowed between them, a rushing roar strong enough to shiver stones, strong enough to tear them apart—except all metaphors failed eventually, didn’t they, because she and Fitz were held together by that same strident stream, even if all the rivers of all the world tried to flood them. Their current was nearly too much to bear. So she pulled him into her arms and felt his wrap around her and let herself sink into it, knowing that they would never let each other drown.

 

 

Sylvia was not in when they called her later that morning, nor that afternoon, nor that evening, nor in fact any time they tried to reach her that weekend. After the fifth time, Jemma began to be concerned; after the eighth time she was worried enough to ask the unhelpful landlady if she had been in at all.

“Yes,” the landlady sniffed, “leastways, I haven’t seen her but her bed’s been slept in the last three nights. _Four_ nights ago, now—”

“Yes, I know about four nights ago,” Jemma said sharply, “we were out at a late party and my husband invited her to spend the night at our home. If you see her—”

“I’ll let her know you want to speak to her, yes, ma’am.” Perhaps the other woman’s frustration had some justification; Jemma had given her that message each of the previous seven times. “In fact I’m going to shove a note under her door so she’ll see it first thing she gets in. Thank you, ma’am. Someone’s at the door and I must go answer it if you’ll excuse me.”

So that was that. They had better luck contacting Aaron on Sunday afternoon, sitting together in the desk chair with the receiver held between them:

“Recovered from your raucous evening, Jemma?” he asked, “I know my family can be a bit exuberant.”

“I hardly noticed,” she said truthfully. “Well recovered, thank you.”

“Good, good, excellent. And”—he cleared his throat slightly—“Miss Forbes? She’s all right too?”

They exchanged a glance. “Last time we spoke, she seemed to be,” Fitz said finally. “Listen, old man, that’s what we rang you about—er, not Miss Forbes, that is, but your hospitality the other night. We’d like to return it. To your family, too, only they won’t eat with us, will they?”

“I’m afraid not,” he said regretfully, “but they’ll come for cards sometime if you like.”

“We’d have to learn to play cards first,” Jemma said.

“A damper on the situation,” he acknowledged. “Well, I’m more than willing to accept the invitation, but it can’t be for a bit—it’s High Holy Days at present, and I’m in shul every moment I’m not in the City. Actually, I’m in shul when I really ought to be in the City.”

“Are the exchanges nervy?” Jemma answered Fitz’s surprised eyebrow raise with a smug one of her own. Aaron sighed heavily on the other end of the line.

“You’ve really no way of understanding how nervy they are; an entire home of gassed soldiers, poor devils, is calm in comparison. I may not survive with my own nerves intact. Hitler had better not express an interest in Switzerland, is all.”

“But dinner,” Fitz said, keeping hold of the essential point, “when are the holidays—”

“Holy Days.”

“—when are they over?”

“They’re not. But I have a few days between Yom Kippur on Wednesday and Sukkot on Sunday, so perhaps I could come then?”

“Thursday, then,” Jemma said firmly, “you’re busy Fridays, aren’t you, and we’ve unfortunately got an engagement on Saturday.”

 _We have?_ Fitz mouthed at her.

_The Osbournes, remember?_

His quick blinking betrayed that he had not, but Jemma saw no reason to chide him for it. With everything that had happened the past few days, she would have forgotten herself had she not seen the memorandum drifting around the hall telephone table. “We’re meeting the Osbournes,” she told Aaron to explain the sudden silence. “We’ve decided we can’t do as they ask.”

“A lot of dead ends,” he said wisely. “I had another one for you, but I’ve been so run off my feet I forgot to mention it before. I looked into Budgie Evans’ debts, as you asked, and came up empty-handed; he certainly has them and has got near danger several times, but they’re fairly trifling sums and paid promptly every quarter. I’m afraid he’s a washout as far as motive.”

“And life,” Fitz said. “That’s about what we expected, Aaron, but thank you. You will come on Thursday?”

“With bells on,” he promised, “unless I’m suffocated by a flood of stock certificates before then.”

“Let us hope for better things,” Jemma said kindly.

Aaron sighed again. “From your mouth to God’s ears.”

As the week drew on, Aaron’s prayer became more and more applicable. Despite Chamberlain’s promise and Hitler’s gloating, the world seemed as far from peace as ever: the First Lord of the Admiralty resigned with a blistering speech against the Prime Minister’s policy of appeasement; the Spanish Republicans sent the hundreds of foreign soldiers in their ranks home; another portion of Czechoslovakia declared its independence; Charles Lindbergh was reported to have said that the Luftwaffe alone could beat the combined air force of every other major power. “That’s only because he doesn’t know about the Project,” Fitz said, but uneasily, and did not question when Whitehall requested his presence all day Thursday. Jemma, who had spent a great deal of the week in his office with her notebooks going over each item Smith had taken and spinning out the many benign and dangerous possibilities contained therein, went to her lab with something of the foggy feeling one has after getting out of an extremely hot bath. This explained, perhaps, why she took several seconds longer than she ought to recognize Sylvia when she knocked at the lab door.

“If you’re busy,” her friend began, but Jemma offered her brightest smile and immediately began stripping off her protective gear.

“Not at all. And if I was, you could provide me an extra hand. I’ve been trying to talk to you all week.”

“I know,” Sylvia said, drifting to the high stool she usually sat on and collapsing onto it. When she closed her eyes, the deep caverns beneath them stood out in sharp relief. “I got your messages, but I—well, to be honest, I couldn’t think what to say.”

“Whatever you like, I hope.”

“Yes,” she said, “but if I said what I liked I can anticipate the response, and I lacked the ability to bear it with equanimity.”

“Why should you need that? I hope I’m a better friend than to chastise you.”

“I would deserve it, though.”

“Sylvia.” Jemma reached across the table to place her hand over her friend’s. “All you did was try to rescue the man you loved. I’m hardly one to throw stones about that.”

Sylvia’s eyes popped open, and she twisted her hand away. “But you and Fitz had _such_ a row, and I can’t help but feel it was my fault.”

Jemma flushed a little, regretting sharply that they had forgotten when they were shouting at each other in the wee hours of the morning that not one but two people slept just several doors away. Jean, bless her, hadn’t said anything. She would have expected Sylvia to do the same, but apparently her guilt overcame her good manners. “It wasn’t. Or at least, you might have been the ignition point but everything that came after was his responsibility and mine, and had nothing to do with you. Anyway we’ve made up and all’s pax, so there isn’t anything for you to feel badly about. Certainly nothing worth keeping a vow of silence all this time. Fitz has been anxious about you, too.”

“He’s very kind.”

“He is, but that isn’t why. We’ve both been—well, concerned, really, about if you’re all right after what happened last week.”

“When it became clear I nearly married a man hell-bent on destroying the government, you mean?” She laughed mirthlessly. “It would have been debilitating if I hadn’t already realized he was a week, ignorant, self-absorbed and selfish boor. As it is it rather seems par for the course.”

“But you cared for him all the same,” Jemma said as gently as she knew how.

“I did.” Sylvia pressed her lips into a firm line, shaking her head so the brimming tears flung rather than fell from her eyes. “The truly wretched thing is that I still do. That’s why I’ve been looking for him all week.”

“In police custody?” Jemma asked, surprised, “it’s taken that long to locate him? Can’t they just look at their arrest records?”

She regretted her bluntness immediately, but Sylvia went on without so much as a blink. “Assuming he didn’t provide a false name—but he didn’t. He isn’t in their custody and never was, as far as I can tell.”

“Where is he then?”

“If I knew that! I’ve asked every friend I can think of, visited every haunt, and no one’s seen hide nor hair of him. Either he’s disappeared or he’s dead. I’m not sure which is worse.”

“Oh, not dead, surely!” Jemma realized fleetingly that would mean he vanished without sparing a second thought for Sylvia, but as that seemed characteristically rotten of him she didn’t find it necessary to voice the objection. “Dead bodies always turn up in London. There’s nowhere for them to go.”

“Except the river.”

“Well. Yes. I suppose.”

A moment of silence passed during which they both tried not to imagine Mark’s bloated, fish-eaten corpse, then Sylvia swallowed and said “whatever’s happened, I can’t think of another way to find out. There’s nothing more to be done. He’s clearly finished with me, so I may as well wash my hands of him.”

For all she thought Mark didn’t deserve the dirt Sylvia walked on, something inside Jemma ached at the grimly resolute way Sylvia brushed him off. She had loved him, planned to bear his children, wept over him, fought for him—and now he was as good as dead. What had passed between them didn’t matter anymore; it couldn’t sustain a life together. And yet, it had been love once, surely. Jemma bit her lip, searching for the proper words of comfort. Sylvia didn’t let her find them. “I’m going to clear his things out of his room tonight. I don’t want to pay his rent anymore.”

“I’ll come with you,” she said eagerly, glad of an opportunity to be useful. “Oh, only we’re having Aaron to dine. Could you go now, and come to dinner afterwards? Fitz will be glad to see you. I expect Aaron will as well.”

“Oh, I—” Sylvia darted a glance at the linoleum, then the door and the clock. “I’m really only supposed to be fetching petri dishes. And anyway, Jemma, I’d rather do it myself.”

Distracted by the red tint to her friend’s cheeks, Jemma agreed more easily than she otherwise would have. Sylvia hopped off the stool and tucked her hands into the pockets of her coverall. “I don’t suppose you have petri dishes you could give me?”

“Heaps. We wouldn’t want you to catch it from your head.”

She hunted up the glass and agar dishes and zealously piled them into a handy carton, so much so that handing it off proved to be a trickier prospect than expected. With careful application of basic physics principles, they managed to balance it between them while Sylvia got a better hold. Jemma waited until she was sure it wouldn’t drop, then held on a second longer. “Sylvia,” she said, eyes focused on the contents of the carton, “please know you don’t have to be alone if you don’t want to.”

Sylvia stayed silent a moment, and there was a viscous quality to her voice when she answered. “Thank you, Jemma. That means a great deal.”

After Sylvia left, Jemma found herself working with renewed focus. Curious, she stopped to realize on the drive home, since she hadn’t been consciously thinking about Sylvia, but somehow knowing their friendship remained steady and Sylvia seemed likely to pull through her current troubles with grace relieved her enough that the rest of the world’s madness felt less pressing. She intentionally ignored the newsstand on the corner as she hurried up to her door, already a half-hour past the time they had told Aaron to come. Someday, she promised herself, flinging her coat and hat indiscriminately and hurrying into the study at Lane’s direction, and echoed it again when both men looked up somewhat blankly from their places by the fire. “Someday we’ll both be here when we invite you for dinner,” she said, bestowing a smile on Aaron as she moved to Fitz’s side and took his hand.

Fitz kissed her fingertips absently. “Wish you had been here. Conversation’s been pretty grim.”

Turning to Aaron, she took in the fine creases around his eyes and the slightly yellow tint to his skin. Even his easy smile seemed strained. “Are you all right?” she exclaimed, taking an unconscious step forwards.

He waved her off. “Only tired. Every single second has been occupied lately; I nearly fell asleep in the middle of a sentence.”

“That’s true,” Fitz put in.

“We’ve been trying to get my mother’s relations out of Germany and it’s a losing battle. With all Jewish passports under review—”

“What?” Jemma gasped before remembering a half-read article in yesterday’s paper. “No, never mind, I remember. I didn’t know you had family there, Aaron. Why haven’t they already come?”

Fitz’s fingers tightened around hers in a silent warning. Glancing down at him, she only heard Aaron shove to his feet and kick at the grate. “Bloody marvelous question, that. Why, exactly, are decent, peaceful people with families to help them and places to live who will be no drain on the country’s resources forbidden to seek refuge here? We’ve got my small cousins out, and some of the family went to America, but most of them are still trapped with that”—he kicked the grate again—“madman.”

Jemma’s fingers turned—if possible—colder in Fitz’s clasp. _What did you think would happen?_ he asked her silently, only sorry he hadn’t been able to warn her before she said anything. She never would have asked if she had heard the conversation they’d been having. But he couldn’t blame Aaron for being angry, not even for his language—the situation was a travesty.

 _What do we do?_ she asked.

He shrugged, at as much of a loss as she was. What could be done? He had already offered the lump of their financial resources, but even they didn’t have enough for the bribes required to remove seventy people from the grip of a totalitarian government. She furrowed her forehead at him. _You don’t have any ideas?_

_Not enough._

_There must be something._

_I wish there was_.

“I’m sorry.” They both snapped their gazes back to Aaron, who sighed heavily before melting back into the chair and scrubbing his hands over his face and up into his hair. He caught his yarmulke between two fingers before he knocked it entirely off. “It isn’t your fault. Only sometimes blowing up the government doesn’t seem such a bad idea.”

Jemma sat on the arm of Fitz’s chair, squirming uneasily. Poor thing, understandably uncomfortable with even veiled jokes. But Fitz, who had known Aaron longer, heard in the offhand comment reason to relax. He waited a beat, got up to poke at the fire, and said causally, “Well, but anarchy isn’t the best breeding ground for financial stability.”

He could hear Jemma suck in a breath behind him, but the sound he was waiting for covered it over almost instantly as Aaron’s double-bass laugh scraped out. “Listen to you, my timid socialist. Have you succumbed to the pull of wealth after all?”

“I never voted the straight party line,” he said, aggrieved, turning with his hands on his hips. Aaron’s grin danced without help from the flames, but the shadows only deepened Jemma’s dismayed bafflement. Had he really never told her? What kind of job was he making of marriage, anyway? “You can’t grow up in Glasgow slums and not be a bit of a socialist,” he explained as matter-of-factly as he could. “Mam took me to meetings from a boy.”

His attempts at normalcy had no effect. Jemma leaned heavily against the wing. “Jean did?”

Nodding somewhat guiltily, he put one hand on the back of his neck and didn’t quite meet her eyes. “We went to the Soviet Club once or twice here, but they’re only a lot of talk, really. And I don’t agree with such drastic measures anymore.”

“Such a pity,” Aaron said. “And just when your wife was being swayed to the cause.”

He had placed, apparently, the last straw on the camel’s back, because Jemma lost her balance on the arm of the chair and fell into the seat, burying her head in her hands. Fitz moved towards her by reflex, shooting Aaron as much of a glare as he could manage towards someone who had been bawling ten minutes ago and could now barely contain his laughter. Kneeling by the chair, he placed a tentative hand on her elbow. “He doesn’t mean it, Jemma, he’s only being a fool. We know you don’t have anything to do with them and I don’t have much to do with them anymore, either, I swear.”

She spoke without moving her hands, muffling her words so he had to lean close to hear them. “It’s just too ridiculous. I thought we had all our secrets out but here’s another, and I was worried about Whitehall finding out I went to a meeting when you’ve already been to them, and my mother-in-law is a socialist and somehow I ended up consorting with the most radical sect of all!” The face she lifted to him didn’t seem to know whether it wanted to laugh or cry, leaving the mouth in something of a squiggle. “How did this happen?”

Aaron leaned forward, propping his elbows on his knees and letting his hands dangle in front of him. “I think I’ve been a very good boy and not pestering for that answer. In the spare moments I do not have I’ve been pondering how two genteel ladies ended on my doorstep in the hands of the police, and no solution I’ve found satisfies every point. If I prostrate myself at your feet in lamentation for my hideous blunder of pretending even in fun that you had anything to do with it, will you tell me the story?”

From Fitz’s vantage point on the floor, Jemma appeared as remote and unamused as Victoria on a monument. She canted her head, staring at Aaron impassively, waiting until his smile died away and turned pleading. Then she laughed, holding out her hand for him to shake. “Of course I will. You deserve it, I think, for your quick thinking and moral compromise. Call it your version of the Victoria Cross.”

Over dinner, she told Aaron the whole story—not in much detail as Fitz had heard it, tucked up in their bed with their foreheads pressed together and her hair making a curtain around them, but enough that he declared it a miracle that he had escaped the City at a decent hour and expressed a desire to join Fitz should he ever hunt down Sylvia’s fiancé to punch his teeth in. “Might improve his looks,” he mused, and Jemma pointed her pudding spoon at him dramatically.

“That’s precisely what I said! Fitz hasn’t ever seen him, so he can’t agree or disagree.”

Aaron swung around to face him. “You’re lucky then, Fitz, since his ugly mug has haunted my nightmares since I had the misfortune to see him on the platform. _And_ a violent revolutionary to boot, not to mention the kind of man who abandons women to save his own skin. Can’t imagine what a charming girl like Miss Forbes saw in him.”

Although she flashed Fitz a significant glance, Jemma kept her own counsel on the secrets of her friend’s heart. “So he lost Sylvia, but he may have kept his freedom—I saw her today, Fitz, and she says he isn’t in any of the places those people were kept.”

“Bail?” Fitz asked.

She shook her head. “A man who belonged to a group that threatened to blow up civilians to overthrow the government? The bail would be too rich for his blood. No, he’d be there if he ever was.”

“Blast.” Scowling, Aaron jabbed at his portion of the pudding. “It hardly seems fair, does it, that he gets off scot free?”

Fitz watched Jemma’s eyebrows draw together thoughtfully, saw the question spark in her eyes, and spoke quickly to cut off what would most assuredly be an embarrassing moment for all three of them. “Pardon me,” he said with all the dignity he sorely lacked, “I do not appreciate the use of that expression. What have my countrymen to do—”

The dining room door banged into the wall, closing off his sentence prematurely as they all three realized whatever was about to come through the doorway would be vastly more important than whatever he meant to say. First came Lane, the limp hair at the top of his head bouncing as he hurried to keep enough ahead of the second person to announce her properly: “Miss Forbes!” he blurted out, just as Sylvia flew breathlessly past him with wide, terrified bronze eyes and her handbag clutched to her chest. He and Aaron shot to their feet, both reaching out to steady her, and Jemma said hurriedly “that will do Lane thank you very much” before standing as well. The instant the door shut she went to it and turned the key in the lock. “Now,” she said, putting the key in her pocket and leaning back against the door, “whatever is the matter, Sylvia? Is it Mark? Or the police?”

Sylvia shook her head furiously. “No—yes—I don’t know! It’s all of those things, and none—Jemma, I didn’t know what else to do—”

“Whatever it is I’m sure you did perfectly right,” Jemma said firmly, “but if not, we’ll make it right as quickly as we can. Starting with a glass of brandy, I think, Fitz? For the shock.”

He nodded, but turned to find Aaron already with a glass in hand. “Won’t you sit down, Sylvia?” Aaron asked, offering her the drink, “I’m sure you’ll feel much better.”

Dazed, she took the glass in one hand but kept firm hold of her bag with the other. “Thank you, Aaron, no. I think I’m—” She flickered like a candle in a breeze and Fitz leapt forward to place a firm hand at her elbow. “Thank you, Mr. Fitz-Simmons. Perhaps I had better.”

A quick game of musical chairs ensued, at the end of which Sylvia sat in Aaron’s chair, Jemma sat in Fitz’s chair, Fitz sat in Jemma’s chair, and Aaron paced nervously around the three of them. Shooting him a warning, Jemma turned her attention to Sylvia and took the hand that had held the glass between both of hers, rubbing as though her icicle fingers could somehow warm Sylvia up. “All right, now we’re settled, will you tell us what happened? Something at Mark’s?”

Aaron looked at Fitz, who shrugged one shoulder. Sylvia, apparently, knew what Jemma meant. “I went there after work, as I told you. All his things are still there; it doesn’t look like he’s been back at all. I packed up his books first, then went on to his wardrobe and bureau, the things off the walls, you know—” Jemma nodded encouragingly. Aaron gritted his teeth. Fitz waited. “And then under the bed. I knew he kept shoes and things under there at Oxford; I thought I had better be sure. At first I thought nothing was there, but then I put my hand all the way back to the wall and I felt a paper parcel under my fingers—too small for boots, it might have been a piece of trash, but it might have been important, mightn’t it?”

“Yes, of course,” Jemma said. “In fact I assume that it was, or you wouldn’t be telling us about it?”

Removing her hand from between Jemma’s, Sylvia finally took the bag from its place over her heart and opened it slowly, plunging into its depths and stopping. “The string broke when I lifted it, and something fell out.”

“What, Sylvia?”

“These.”

She pulled out her hand with a magician’s flourish and her audience gasped obligingly, uncertain at first what they saw but fully aware it was something extraordinary. Fitz only saw green to begin, deep forests turned bright under the electric light, then old, heavy gold, then as she spread it out between her hands he realized that the green and the gold twisted together and dripped from Sylvia’s grip and clattered against each other and were jewels in a setting: an emerald necklace. “What is it?” he asked, stupidly, dazzled by the sight of something that looked like it belonged in the Tower of London.

“Don’t you know?” Sylvia asked, looking in surprise from him to Jemma.

His wife shook her head. “An emerald necklace, but I’ve never seen one like that before.”

“If I had a guess,” Aaron said from behind him, startling them all, “I’d say those are the Osbourne emeralds.”

“Mr. Klein,” Sylvia said quietly, “gets the prize.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My beta said, "this bit about the Jews is so sad. Can't you make it less sad?" But alas, I cannot. My research indicates that Britain let in tens of thousands of German Jewish refugees, but that Jewish aid organizations had records of about half a million other applications that were denied. Sadly, Britain was not alone in this policy.
> 
> A bit of a damper, that. It's important, though.
> 
> In happier news: note that the chapters have been updated! We're now no more than four weeks from the end.


	28. Two Examinations, A Thousand Questions

Fifteen years before Fitz was born, some children playing the Siege of Mafeking discovered a corpse in a cellar on his street. The story, grown more gruesome with the passing of time, had passed into lore and become a mark of distinction for his neighborhood those around them didn’t share, but he had never joined in the ghoulish glee—if he had a choice, he crossed to the other side of the street when he had to pass the house. Something about it made him feel as though someone was walking over his grave: he got goose pimples and a queer queasiness in the pit of his stomach and an inescapable conviction of impending disaster. Staring at the Osbourne emeralds flashing and sparking as they swung between Sylvia’s hands, he had the same feeling. Whether this necklace precipitated the murder or merely witnessed it, its very presence demanded their consideration. And they had been so close to escaping!

Jemma’s gaze snapped to Fitz, a thousand questions brimming over, and her hand sought his under the table. “No,” she said, not removing her eyes from him, “it can’t be.”

“It is,” Sylvia said firmly, “I’ve seen them a dozen times.”

“But those aren’t paste.”

“Of course not.” Aaron and Sylvia spoke at the same time, and Sylvia shot Aaron a confused glance over Fitz’s shoulder. “I mean, just look at them,” he explained, waving a hand, “we can examine them if you like, but I’ll bet my boots they’re real. I’ve never known anything glass to sparkle like that.”

Lowering the necklace onto the table, Sylvia frowned. “Why would you think they were paste? The Osbournes have never needed money that way.”

“Mrs. Osbourne told us they were when we spoke to her.” Jemma ran one finger around the curve of the central jewel. “Could this be the real one? What I mean is, could this be the one they sold and haven’t had for ten years?”

“Let’s be sure it’s real first,” Fitz said, trying to force the thronging questions into some semblance of order and feeling rather as though he was failing. “What do we need for that?”

“Only a fairly strong magnifying lens,” Aaron said. “I don’t suppose you keep such a thing in the house? I believe only really serious scientists have them.”

It was the work of a moment to decamp to the study where, as Aaron knew full well, Fitz and his really serious scientist wife kept a wide variety of magnifying lenses and the appropriately bright lights to illuminate anything one wished to look at. After laying a clean white cloth on the desk, Aaron took a seat and cracked his knuckles while Sylvia set the necklace down in front of him with all the precision of a theatre nurse. He ran his fingers over the selection of lenses, picking up several only to set them back down with a grimace, until he finally found one that met some exacting standard and bent over the necklace with a ponderous _hmm_.

“Oh please,” Jemma murmured, still clinging to Fitz’s hand, “can we dispense with the dramatics?”

He pressed her fingers silently, unable to take his attention from Aaron’s admittedly over-the-top examination. But did it really matter, he asked himself, if the necklace was real or paste? Whichever it was, too many questions remained: how had Mark Jones gotten it? What was he doing with it? Was there a connection between him and one or more of the Osbournes beyond his engagement to their goddaughter? If it was paste, did that make him the murderer? If it was real, what in the world did that mean? And whatever happened, what were they supposed to do next?

He didn’t know how long it took Aaron to reach some conclusion and lift his head from its bent position, but he wasn’t certain if he took a breath the entire time. “Absolutely sound,” Aaron said. “Not a one of these is paste, they’re all perfectly matched, the settings haven’t been bent—it’s not exactly my area of expertise, but I’d be willing to testify in court that they’re the genuine article.”

Sylvia slumped suddenly against the desk with a shuddering breath, then seemed to regain her nerve and stiffened her elbows to hold herself up. With a quick adjustment, Jemma moved around the desk to peer over Aaron’s shoulder instead of going to comfort her friend. “How can you tell?”

Handing her the lens, he used his little finger to point at the center of the largest jewel. “Paste stones have air bubbles in them where the glass was blown. Real ones don’t, because they’re—”

“Formed by pressure from the earth, I know.” Jemma got to her knees to be closer to the necklace, plying the lens on one, then several more of the jewels.

Aaron shoved to his feet, rocking up on his toes uneasily. “There are a few more tests if you like—they won’t scratch glass, they’re warm to the touch—but I think—”

“That’s not necessary,” Jemma said as she got to her feet and offered Fitz the lens, “I think you’re right. Do you want a look, Fitz? Sylvia?”

He shook his head. Sylvia huffed a mirthless laugh. “I never believed they were anything but real. It was everything else I couldn’t quite manage to accept.”

Fitz, pinching the bridge of his nose, didn’t blame her. It wasn’t enough for her fiancé to have been a traitor; he had to be connected to a murder too? Unless Mrs. Osbourne hadn’t lied and the paste necklace was still missing, leaving Mark to somehow get his grubby hands on the real one in a coincidence Fitz found so unlikely as to be nearly impossible. Or maybe Mrs. Osbourne had told the truth as far as she knew it and had been falsely informed about the necklace’s condition—but who would have done that, and why, and why did all the rest of the family believe it was real? And, in the name of all things holy, _how_ and _why_ did Mark have it to begin?

“Fitz.”

He peered over his fingers at Jemma, who pulled a pencil from the cup on the desk and offered it across to him, rubber end first. One eyebrow raised, she suggested hesitantly, “The Fitz-Simmons List of Critical Data?”

His hand dropped from his face and went to his pocket before he even thought about it, reaching for the little notebooks they had solved his uncle’s murder with. Of course, they needed method and order, structure and sense—this whole investigation had been given a lick and a promise (for justified reasons, he thought) but if they were to solve it they needed to organize themselves. Ignoring their friends’ confusion, he moved to grip the end she held out to him but didn’t take it, not yet. “You simply aren’t willing to accept failure, are you?” _Do you think we can do it still?_

Her mouth stayed linear, but her eyes curved into a smile meant just for him. “Have you ever known me to be content leaving something I put my hand to half-done?” _I think we can do anything._

“But what _is_ the Fitz-Simmons list of important information?” Aaron asked. “And are Klein and Forbes allowed to participate, or must we sit in the corner until mother and father are done?”

“Oh, no,” Sylvia said, screwing up her face, “don’t call them that. For one thing, they’re several years younger than I am.”

“And I, if it comes to it,” Aaron admitted.

“It’s _Critical Data_ ,” Jemma said, “and this conversation does not contribute. You may certainly participate if you are willing to be helpful.” Releasing the end of the pencil, she stooped to pull some paper from one of the drawers. “Shall we begin? Fitz does the writing.”

As before, they found their old methodology only confused the matter and resigned themselves to a List of Vital Questions. At first most of them fell straight from his brain out of Jemma’s mouth and onto the paper, but the longer they worked the more the others felt willing to shove into their conversation rather than merely watching them delightedly—Aaron—or wistfully—Sylvia. With their four heads bent over the paper and his hand moving almost quicker than it did at the piano, it took them hardly a half-hour to formulate a list they all agreed asked the most important questions:

  1. Why did Mrs. Osbourne tell F-S the necklace was paste? 
    1. Did she willingly lie, and if so, why?
    2. Did someone (Mr. Osbourne) lie to her, and if so, why?
  2. Is it possible that this is not the necklace stolen the night of the murder? (unlikely)
  3. How did Mark get the necklace? (took it, given it)
  4. What did he plan to do with it? (since keeping it under one’s bed is idiotic and not useful)
  5. Is it necessarily so that Mark having the necklace means Mark is the murderer?



“Now we’ve got this,” Aaron said, “what do we do with it?”

“Well,” Jemma replied, observing Sylvia from the corner of her eye, “we investigate. At this point we’re usually able to answer some of our questions with information we gleaned in earlier interviews, but as we didn’t even know to ask about this—”

“How could you?” Sylvia picked up the staple remover and chomped it against the corner of the paper until a neat square surrounded the numeral 1. “No one could have expected this. If I recall, he told me he had to visit his parents that evening and so we couldn’t accept the invitation, but I don’t have any way to prove that true.” Her hands jerked sharply, tearing a chunk from the page. She looked at it bleakly. “Sorry. I’ll rewrite it if you like.”

Jemma murmured a negative, abandoning her subtle observation to cant her head deliberately. Good thing Sylvia wasn’t watching her, Fitz thought as his own head titled to mirror his wife, or she would be supremely uncomfortable under Jemma’s hawk-like study. As though she wasn’t already uncomfortable enough, seeing as they sat there systematically weaving a case together that could end in a noose around the neck of a man she loved. Fitz swallowed back the bile that threatened to choke him whenever he thought of hanging and reminded himself of item five. They couldn’t jump to conclusions.

“Perhaps this is a stupid question.”

Their heads returned to vertical as they turned to look at Aaron, who ignored them to continue his own examination. “Only, why are we not going direct to the police? They might not have been able to find anything before, but now we have new evidence, perhaps it will allow them new avenues. And they’d be able to make better inquiries than any of us.”

“And hand it over after we’ve come this far?” Jemma protested. Fitz decided it would not be the best time to remind her that they had been on the verge of abandoning the case.

Aaron pushed his curls up over his forehead, giving him something of the look of an exhausted cockatiel. “People have to tell things to the police—businesses and such, I mean. And they have resources. They could track down Mark quickly for questioning, and then you wouldn’t have to worry about him anymore.”

“Worry?” Sylvia glanced up, her hooded eyelids doing nothing to hide the blazing fire in her gaze. “Oh, I’m not worried about Mark. I’d much rather never see his face again. And if he did this, he deserves what’s coming to him.”

Jemma’s hand on the edge of the desk slid almost imperceptibly towards his, and their eyes matched the motion. What’s coming to him, Sylvia said too easily, with an intellectual understanding and no practical idea of what it really signified. You couldn’t, not until it happened—no one could explain what it felt like to know that your actions and nothing else resulted in a person’s ended existence. Jemma’s forehead creased painfully. Worse, Fitz thought as he laid his little finger beside hers for comfort, when you knew the person you killed. _Should we say something?_ he asked, and the press of her lips gave him his answer.

“But maybe,” he said, “it would be better to let the police dole out justice. It isn’t. . .”

“Pleasant,” Jemma supplied quietly, in the understatement of the century.

“Pleasant, what comes to people if they do things like this. It’s, er—we’ve found it a bit difficult—”

“You mean I might regret being the reason he’s hanged?” Sylvia said bluntly. Aaron blanched a little. Crossing her finger over Fitz’s, Jemma turned to her friend.

“It’s awful, Sylvia, especially when it’s someone you’ve cared for. No matter what they’ve done.”

“But that’s just it, isn’t it?” Sylvia set the staple remover down and pressed her palms to the surface of the desk as she got to her feet. “It would be his own actions, not mine, that resulted in that conclusion. He made his choices and must accept the consequences. Whatever they are”—she choked a little, but didn’t back down—“I’ve lost people through their own choices before. I can bear it by now.”

“It isn’t the same,” Jemma argued, “it isn’t—”

“No, it’s much worse.”

Neither of them said any more, but in the weighted glances that passed between them Fitz saw a world of unspoken words. Suddenly, he remembered that Sylvia’s parents had killed themselves.

After a long moment in which neither woman backed away from the stalemate, Jemma turned to Aaron beseechingly. “Aaron, you understand, don’t you? You respect our experience as true?”

Aaron stirred from behind the prayerful position he had assumed when the conversation started, letting his hands drop to just below his chin. “I respect your experience is true for you and for Fitz, but it might not be that way for everyone. Personally, I have no attachment to the blighter whatsoever and am far more liable to feel sympathy to Mr. Osbourne, who did nothing to deserve his death. And I think—” He paused, as serious as Fitz had ever seen him. “I think, and I hope she’ll forgive me for butting in where it’s none of my business, but I think you ought to respect Miss Forbes’s experiences and let her make her own decision.”

Chastened, Jemma dropped her eyes, leaving Fitz alone to observe what happened next: Aaron flicked a glance and a tentative smile towards Sylvia, somehow transforming his room-at-large speech to something private between the two of them. “She seems strong and brave enough to know her own mind and act on it.”

Sylvia met his butterfly gaze and caught it in the net of her eyelashes, which, Fitz noted with growing surprise, sparkled a little in the light. And then she sent her own smile winging back, entirely free of the sorrowful twist he had come to associate with Sylvia and filled instead with gratitude and astonishment, a potent and beautiful beam that made even his breath catch in his throat. Across the desk, Aaron looked rather as he had the one time he bested Fitz on their mathematics examination—as though an unexpected and unbelievable gift had dropped on his head and nearly knocked him out. Fitz twisted his finger around Jemma’s and pulled her attention to him, directing it with his eyebrows towards their friends. He wasn’t imagining things, was he?

She followed his gaze for a second, her eyes softening as she took in Sylvia’s smile, then turned back to him with a quirked eyebrow. _So?_

_You don’t see it?_

_See what?_

_For heaven’s sake—_

But before he could finish with an eloquent eyebrow waggle, the desk phone rang with a demanding scream, making all four of them start. It stopped as quickly as it began. In the following silence, they could hear a deferential murmur in the hall. “Lane’s answered it,” he said over the pounding of his heart, “if it’s important he’ll let us know.”

Jemma nodded briskly, taking up the Vital Questions. “If everyone’s decided, then, that’s probably for the best. The police have been less than helpful thus far, anyway. Fitz and I can tackle Mrs. Osbourne when we see her Saturday—”

The door opened, followed by Lane’s respectful throat-clear. “I beg your pardon. A Mrs. Gubbins is on the line for Miss Forbes and declines categorically to leave a message. Shall I say you are unavailable?”

“Oh, I—” Sylvia looked between them, all her confidence gone. “Perhaps I’d better. She can be awfully stringent.”

“You can take it in the hall if you like,” Jemma offered, but Sylvia shook her head.

“I’m sure it’s nothing—I’ll take it in here, it won’t be a moment.”

They shuffled about the desk to give Sylvia had better access to the phone and wandered towards the other end of the room, casually pretending they couldn’t hear every word being said. “Her landlady,” Jemma whispered, and Fitz nodded knowingly. He had been privy to their battles over the last week. “A truly horrible person,” she explained to Aaron, “and not at all—”

“What?” Sylvia burst out, “you can’t be—no, of course you wouldn’t—yes, I understand—”

She fell silent again, and Jemma took two hurried, worried steps towards her. Sylvia held up one hand to stall her. “Certainly, Mrs. Gubbins. You may tell them I’ll come right away. Which—yes, I see. Yes, Mrs. Gubbins, I understand. Of course, you’re right. It won’t happen again. Oh, I’m fairly confident. Goodbye.”

She hung up the phone and crumpled, putting her hands on the desk and hanging her head between her shoulders. Fitz felt an irrational surge of anger—why did things keep coming along to beat Sylvia Forbes down? Could she never have more than two minutes of peace together? Hesitating, Jemma wrung her hands and glanced over her shoulder at him, uncertainty all over her face. “Can we help you with something, Sylvia?”

Without looking up, she slid back into the chair and buried her head in her hands. “The police are at Mrs. Gubbins’s. They’ve—they think they’ve found Mark and they’d like me to come to—identify him.”

“He can’t tell them his own name?” Fitz asked, only to receive a quick exasperated warning from his wife. Oh. _Oh_.

“I’ll go with you,” Jemma said quickly. “Rosalind’s just down the street, it won’t be a moment, and Fitz is a rotten driver so we can run you there in hardly any time at all.” She took another hesitant step forward. “If you’d like, of course. Or Fitz can take you by himself, if you’d rather do it alone.”

Sylvia raised her head, grim and pale. “What is it—irony? Now you agree to let me go it alone, I find I don’t wish to. Please come, Jemma. And thank you, Fitz, I’d appreciate it if you’d be willing to drive.”

“Of course,” he said, turning to Aaron where he stood by the fire. “You’ll stay here with...” He waved his hand vaguely towards the desk and the evening’s first bombshell. Aaron nodded.

“Unless you’d like to take it?” he suggested. “Even if you don’t want to cede the investigation ten thousand pounds of stolen emeralds may not be the best thing to keep around one’s house. You might kill two birds with one stone, as it were.”

He glanced at Jemma, who gave a little shake of her head. _Not yet_.

“Not yet,” he echoed, “not tonight. There’s time enough to decide what to do when this is settled.”

Nodding again, Aaron examined the toes of his shoes against the carpet. “And you’ll come back and tell me, won’t you, what the outcome is? I don’t know if I could go away without knowing everything will be all right.”

Fitz watched Jemma go to Sylvia and put one comforting arm about her shoulders. “We’ll come back,” he promised. But he knew, and Aaron knew, that no one could say whether everything would be all right.

They flew through the streets—as best they could; it only felt like it should be the middle of the night, and they ran into theatre crowds no matter what side-streets he attempted—in utter silence, Sylvia huddled next to him while Jemma leaned forwards from the back seat with a hand on each of their shoulders. Fitz tried not to think about the task ahead. He couldn’t, actually, having had no experience like this to shape his worried imaginings; his previous experiences with the police had nearly all been in dining rooms or drawing rooms or bedrooms, with only the long night writing his statement after they solved his uncle’s murder to remind him that policemen didn’t appear from thin air when called for. And of course that, uncomfortable as the desk chair had been, was nothing like so miserable as this would be. That he could say with perfect confidence.

He decided without asking to park the car and go in with them, rather than let them out and try to find them somewhere in the rabbit warren Jemma described. Jemma’s grateful press of his elbow and Sylvia’s trembling fingers on his arm told him he had chosen correctly. Escorting them through the dark, dank night into the bright lights of the station, he marched up to the desk and used his President of Macpherson Industries voice to demand attention: “Pardon me, Miss Sylvia Forbes was wanted at this station to identify someone?”

The desk sergeant jumped, stammering in the face of Fitz’s authority. “I beg your pardon, sir, I don’t know anything about that. Who asked for her?”

“I did.”

Fitz turned to find the speaker and caught, just barely, Jemma’s look of disgust hardening into polite disdain. “Chief Inspector,” she said, “how good to see you again.”

“And you, Mrs. Fitz-Simmons,” he said cordially, “I hadn’t realized you would come as well, but I’m very glad you’re here. Miss Forbes, I wish we could meet in more pleasant circumstances. And this is Mr. Fitz-Simmons? Won’t you come this way? I’ll take you myself.”

He gestured them to a door and led the way, walking with the confidence of a man in his own kingdom. Eyeing him warily, Fitz tried to match the man in front of them with the misogynist monster Jemma described from their earlier run-in. Manners hid a good deal, but he didn’t seem particularly forced; he hadn’t stuttered over Fitz’s double-barreled name, for example, as most men did. And he tried to keep up a steady stream of friendly pleasantries as they marched down the increasingly dim corridors, blissfully ignoring Sylvia’s silence and Jemma’s monotone responses. Fitz trailed behind them, trying to keep from stepping on Jemma’s long dinner dress, and pretended his stomach wasn’t beginning to protest at the mothball-and-rot smells that filled the air.

At last they came to a stop before a metal door with a small glass window, where the Chief Inspector waited for him to catch up before speaking. “Here we are, then. Before we go in, I have two things to say. Miss Forbes, Mrs. Fitz-Simmons, I’d like to take this opportunity to apologize to you for my behavior when last we met. I know it must have been frustrating.”

“Very,” Jemma allowed with a sickly sweet smile.

He winced a little. “I hated to do it. The problem was, we were already in the middle of an investigation in partnership with a branch of the government who insisted on total secrecy, and I wasn’t allowed to tell you anything while it was ongoing. But that’s all done now; I expect you’ve seen in the papers. It was a very dangerous group and I had to warn you off while not telling you anything—a tricky prospect I’m sure you’ll agree—and perhaps I didn’t choose the best method. My apologies.”

“That’s been happening a good deal,” Jemma said with a significant glance at Fitz. “We all make mistakes, Chief Inspector.”

Sylvia roused herself enough to say, “It hardly matters now.”

“True.” The Chief Inspector grew solemn, folding his hands behind his back. “The second thing: I’m afraid I can only let two of you into the room. It’s not very big, you see, and there’s procedure to follow. Which of you will accompany Miss Forbes?”

“I will.”

“My wife.”

If the Chief Inspector found it surprising that the man hung back, he did an admirable job of disguising it. “Very well. If you’ll wait out here, Mr. Fitz-Simmons? It won’t be a moment.”

He opened the door and ushered Sylvia and Jemma in before him, leaving Fitz to peer through the tiny window to watch them. Far better they than he, but he couldn’t help but worry a bit. The Chief Inspector led them into the room and motioned them to stay while he disappeared into another room on the other side, leaving the door gaping like a great black maw. Sylvia’s hands twisted behind her back, clenching and squeezing, wringing; Jemma said something Fitz couldn’t hear and received a headshake in response. Flitting her hand across Sylvia’s back, Jemma turned to catch Fitz’s eye through the window.

 _I don’t know what to do_.

_You’re doing it._

There must have been a noise, because she looked quickly away from him and towards the door. Sylvia tensed tighter than a spring.

The Chief Inspector backed slowly into the room, pulling behind him a wheeled cart with the solemn, sheet-draped lump that might be all that remained of Mark Jones. Fitz’s breathing went shallow, even with the door between him and the corpse. It wasn’t the body exactly, though he could only imagine what state it was in; rather, the image sent him back to the Peacock Room and the red-faced figure that had once been his uncle, to the confused and complicated set of emotions that he remembered with perfect clarity even now. He hadn’t loved George Macpherson—hadn’t even liked him, really—but that somehow made his death worse, adding a layer of guilt to the dismay and shock. Would Sylvia feel the same? And would it be better or worse for her if the still-hidden figure wasn’t Mark at all? The Chief Inspector went to lift the sheet. Fitz held his breath.

The body below rested peacefully: eyes closed, hands folded, hair neat, face and fingers bloated, wrinkled skin a strange greenish-grey that only made the dark mustache gracing the upper lip horrifying in its normality. It was like a grotesque panto puppet meant to terrify children into good behavior—recognizably human, but corrupted just enough to be entirely alien. Jemma and Sylvia took a step back in unison, each bringing a hand to cover their nose and mouth. Fitz forced himself not to look away. What purpose his self-inflicted torture could serve was unclear, since he wouldn’t have known Mark from Adam even without the toll taken by—was it rats? The river?—but if those two brave girls weren’t flinching, he would happily share the forthcoming nightmares.

The Chief Inspector allowed them to collect themselves, then raised one of the body’s limp wrists and turned it for their perusal. A scar? It would have to be a nasty one to still be visible. A tattoo? Well, perhaps, but if so it didn’t seem likely to be Mark. Sylvia moved closer to the cart, still pinching her nose, and bent slightly closer before looking up at the officer. She was saying something, Fitz thought, but he could neither see nor hear it. For her sake he hoped it was at least something definite. But how could it be? he asked again, his eyes returning without his permission to the body’s face. There must be any number of men with dark hair and mustaches in the city—well, perhaps fewer mustaches without accompanying beards, but it wasn’t uncommon. There was a man managing his factory who might turn into this corpse, and another who frequented the same chippie, and another who had sneered at him at the Osbournes’ party—

Stop.

Fitz flung out his hands to lean heavily on the door, suddenly blind to anything but the dead man in front of him. Mark had the emeralds in his room. Mark had been invited to that party. Mark matched the description of the man who had cornered him and been so fervent about communist ideals and the need for removing power from the hands of the present ruling class. Mark might be the corpse on the other side of the door, and if so, Fitz felt with growing but overwhelming certainty, that corpse held the all answers they had been searching for.

With great mental effort he called up the months-old memory. The murder covered everything over with a red film like a darkroom light, but he traced his steps back through the party: Jemma. Lady Hermione. Cumberland-Boothby and that MP and oh lord, Smith. And before that, a tall dark man with fire in his eyes and a disdainful, cultured voice who made him nervous without knowing why. Fitz stared at the cold grey body and imagined life back into it, painted the cheeks a normal color and gave the lips a sardonic twist, pictured what it would look like from his slightly shorter height. When every inch of that hideous face had been scrutinized and imprinted on his memory, he came to his conclusion: he couldn’t swear to it in court, not without a better look. But he knew.

The door fell away under his hands and he started back, gagging on the smell that rolled out like a trench fog. Jemma, looking shaken, reached out a comforting hand nevertheless. “All right, Fitz?”

“Are you?” he managed to ask, looking between her and white-as-a-sheet Sylvia. “That looked horrible.”

“Yes, rather,” she said, trying to smile. “But it’s over with now. The Chief Inspector doesn’t need us any more, am I right?”

He nodded stolidly, swinging the door shut behind them. “Perfectly so, Mrs. Fitz-Simmons. You’ve been very helpful indeed. Miss Forbes, may I offer you my arm?”

“No thank you.” Sylvia’s voice sounded as though it came from very far away. “I’m perfectly all right.”

She refused Fitz’s arm as well, stalking behind the Chief Inspector as he led them back into the station proper. With Jemma’s hand tucked into his elbow, Fitz followed unseeingly, too busy deciding what to say and how to worry about running into walls. Jemma would keep him straight.

They came into the station and then out to the pavement, the nippy October air finally stinging Fitz from his ponderous plans as he mechanically reached out to pull Jemma into his side. “If we walk quickly enough we won’t feel the cold,” he said, and Jemma in her wrap and Sylvia in the thin coat she probably wore to work during the day gave him icy looks before starting towards the car at a near run. They gave him no time to say anything then, and even though the solution coursed through his veins and warmed him enough that he gave his gloves to Jemma without feeling it, the noise of the wind and the city made telling them now unthinkable. Better wait. So he held onto it until Aaron rushed from the study into the hall, tie undone and yarmulke nearly dropping off his head in his anxiousness, his mouth already open to ask the question.

“It’s him.”

Sylvia and Jemma both froze half-in, half-out of their coats, staring at him in disbelief. Aaron pushed his yarmulke back to its proper place, shoving his hands into the pockets of his dress trousers. “I am very sorry, Miss Forbes. That can’t have been pleasant.”

“Not at all,” she said, “but I’m not sure—”

“Fitz,” Jemma said, “what do you mean ‘it’s him’? You’ve never seen him; how can you know?”

“I was wrong,” he said, coming to unwrap her, “I thought I hadn’t, but I had.”

More than one voice asked, “When?”

He clutched Jemma’s wrap and shook his head, hardly able to believe it. “At the Osbournes’s party, before you came, Jemma. I spoke with him, about—oh, communist ideals and if it was odd that I shared them, though he didn’t seem to find it odd that the Osbournes were throwing a party in support—I don’t think I can swear to it, but I’m confident the man we saw tonight was the man I talked to at the party.”

Slumping against the telephone table, Aaron ran a hand into his hair, disarranging his hat again. “So, Mark went to the party, attempted to rob Mrs. Osbourne, was caught by Mr. Osbourne, panicked, tried to kill them both, and escaped with the necklace, which he then knew would be impossible to fence and hid under his bed.”

“It’s reasonable, isn’t it?” Fitz asked, taking Aaron’s slow nod for agreement and clasping his hand to the back of his neck as he turned to the women. “Of course it’s awful, and we can’t prove it, but it’s an answer. And—” He swallowed back his next sentence, thinking it better not to point out that at least this way Sylvia wouldn’t have to see Mark tried and hanged. She looked dazed enough already.

“It’s reasonable, Fitz.”

Jemma came and took her wrap back from him, stroking down the fabric and draping it over her arm. He watched her carefully, uncertain what her intentionally blank expression signified—had he done something wrong? Did she not want Aaron to see her upset? Was her face numb from the drive over? “But?”

“But unfortunately, that man wasn’t Mark.”

“Not Mark!” Aaron burst out. Fitz shook his head furiously.

“Simmons, that was the man I spoke to. I’m 87 percent confident.”

“Perhaps,” she said, nodding, barely breathing, “but it wasn’t Mark.”

Aaron groaned, banging his fist against the table. “Then we’re no further than we were before. What a beastly coincidence—what are the odds?”

Too high too calculate, Fitz thought, unable to take his eyes off his wife. Frustrated beyond words, he stared without looking, watching the tiny movements of her lips and eyes and cataloguing them automatically. Until. Until all the little signs added up to something more and he realized that below the exhaustion and strain something sparked, something important. “Simmons,” he said, “what else?”

She pursed her lips and glanced at Sylvia, who let out a slow breath as her hands fell to rest at her sides.

“Charles,” Sylvia said. “It was Charles.”


	29. Everyone Sits In A Room And Listens

“The family is waiting for you in the upstairs sitting room,” the Osbournes’s butler said as he shut the front door behind them. “Shall I show you the way?”

“Thank you, we know it.” Fitz hesitated, rolling the brim of his hat between his fingers. “Er, beg pardon, you seem a knowledgeable fellow—you’ve been here with the Osbournes for some time, haven’t you?” The butler inclined his head slightly, whether to agree with the statement or acknowledge the compliment one couldn’t tell. Fitz, not caring, continued. “My wife and I are thinking of throwing a small soiree, but we’re a bit wary of being gate-crashed. How do you handle such things here?”

“Madam provides a list,” the butler said stiffly, “of the people who have accepted the invitation and are expected. Everyone else is put out.”

“Ah,” Fitz said, making significant eye contact with Jemma. “A list, eh? A very good idea, that. Perhaps we shall try it as well.”

“Perhaps you ought to scale down the Bertie Wooster bit,” Jemma murmured as he placed his hand at the small of her back to her them towards the stairs.

“What?” he gasped mockingly, “but I’ve been working so hard at my empty-minded goggle. I suppose my scintillating intelligence betrays itself despite my best efforts.”

She rolled her eyes, unwilling to stoke his good self-opinion even though she shared it. His ability to retrieve essential information without rousing suspicion never ceased to impress her. “That’s it then, isn’t it?” she asked instead, “the final piece?”

“I think so.”

They came to a halt at the base of the staircase, both looking up the short flight as though it rivaled Mount Everest. “Ready?” he asked, twisting his fingers into the loose fabric of her dress.

“As I’ll ever be.”

She smiled as best she could and started up the steps. A tug at the back of her dress stopped her movement only one stair up, and the serious expression on his face stopped the intended scolding on her tongue. “We’re doing the right thing, Simmons.”

For all the confidence in his tone, his eyes added a qualifying _aren’t we?_ that she recognized by its resemblance to the question whispering in the corners of her own thoughts. Every discussion about their course of action—both with Sylvia and Aaron into the wee hours of Friday and by themselves in the two days thereafter—centered on the same question and ended at the same conclusion, only to begin anew when uncertainty grew louder than conviction. Neither of them was accustomed to decisions plagued by so much doubt. But the alternative—shaking her head, walking back out to the street, going home to dinner with Jean and living with this knowledge for the rest of her life—seemed even more unthinkable. “We are,” she said, trying to match his surety in hopes it would bolster her own. “We’re just not meant for private detectives, Fitz.”

“Well.” He came to stand on the step beside her, brushing his knuckles against the back of her hand. “We’ll finish off this case and retire then, hmm? I’m sure we can manage to keep busy with our little scientific hobby.”

She laughed, as he meant her to, and the lightness buoyed them up the stairs and to the threshold of Mrs. Osbourne’s sitting room, where they stopped by mutual consent before opening the door. “Ready?” she echoed.

He reached for her hand and gave it a quick squeeze. “For anything, so long as you’re here.”

She needed that reassurance when the door swung open to reveal five sets of eyes already staring—it hadn’t occurred to her before that she had never seen all the Osbournes together in one room, and the combined effect was rather alarming. All their differences dropped away to leave only various degrees of expectancy and wariness in steady brown gazes from all directions: Larry standing by the window, Iris and Daphne on the sofa, Budgie tucked away in the corner, Mrs. Osbourne in the chair she occupied at their last interview. They had arranged themselves facing the fireplace with its glorious candlesticks, Jemma noticed with a smile; apparently they had read enough novels to know where the detective always stood. Fitz reached into his pockets as they made their way across the room, pulling out the things they brought to underscore their points if necessary. After placing them on the mantelpiece, he turned to catch her eye: _Shall I?_

_Please._

With another nod, he faced the Osbournes and put his hands in the pockets of his trousers, his shoulders tense but his voice calm as he began as they planned at home: “Thank you for meeting us this evening. Especially you, Mrs. Osbourne; we know you weren’t enthusiastic about our investigation.”

She raised a limp, forgiving hand.

“When we asked to speak with you,” he continued, “we fully intended to inform you that we were unable to come to any conclusions regarding the unfortunate incident that took place here last July. Since then, however, we have come across new information that has enabled us—”

“Can you tell us or not?” Daphne burst out, “for God’s sake, we’re desperate to know.”

Looking around the room, Jemma would not have used the word desperate to describe the other Osbournes’ emotions—uneasiness, perhaps, or resignation—but she answered kindly anyway. “It isn’t that simple, I’m afraid. We have developed a theory of the case but are unfortunately unable, for reasons which will become clear, to garner enough proof to present it to the police. However, if you like, we are prepared to lay it before you.”

“Yes,” Daphne said, bouncing in her seat. “Yes, of course, you must!”

Iris picked up a cigarette case from among the photographs on the end table and flicked it open. “We’re all here; you may as well.”

“Damn tedious waste of evening otherwise, what?” Budgie piped up, only to fall silent at a single smoky glance from his wife.

Pulling at his collar, Larry cleared his throat. “Well, it’s up to Mater, isn’t it? After all, Pater—and she was the one there, of course. . .”

At his gesture, they all turned to wait for Mrs. Osbourne’s opinion; she, concentrated on the lacy handkerchief twisting between her hands, did not immediately respond. Fitz shifted from foot to foot, taking one hand from his pocket to beat restlessly against his leg. Jemma swayed just close enough to let her skirt brush against his arm in a silent warning.

“Mrs. Osbourne?” she said softly after a minute. “May we continue?”

The older woman spoke without looking up. “What else are you here for?”

Grudging permission, but permission nonetheless. Fitz let out a tiny sigh of relief and stopped fidgeting. “In order to explain, we’ll have to tell a rather long story. Please, we promise it’s necessary to understand why we think what we do.”

“There will be time for questions at the end,” Jemma said, and folded her hands in front of her just as she did when giving a lecture. That’s all this was, really. And shorter than her lectures at Oxford, too, although she felt a trifle less confident in her subject matter. Wishing for a glass of water, she began:

“I believe none of you have met Sylvia Forbes’s fiancé, Mark Jones. I have, and I will candidly tell you he isn’t worth meeting. Mark has, I think, a bit of what is called a ‘superiority complex’; he also, I know for a fact, is a lazy, self-absorbed, privileged wart. These two things together make him a very unpleasant person to be around. Regardless, he is the first player in this game. For some reason, he feels as though he has been cheated out of things that ought to be rightfully his: respect, position, power. Rather than do what any sensible and decent person would do and work to earn them”—Fitz cleared his throat. She modulated her volume—“he decided to take the less strenuous road. Sylvia has singlehandedly supported him as well as herself since coming down from Oxford. Mark, meanwhile, devoted himself to finding people who would allow him to ride their coattails to the life he thinks he should have.”

“There aren’t many,” Fitz put in.

Jemma shook her head. “He’s truly awful. But he’s also dead useful to people who know how to make people work for them. Enter the second player: a man called Charles.”

She ceded the floor to Fitz. The Osbournes shifted their attention to him as one body.

“Charles,” Fitz said, “comes from no one knows where. Honestly, we aren’t sure how Mark met him—Sylvia says Mark had been hanging around the Soviet Club for some time, and they certainly made arrangements to meet there—and we don’t know anything about his past, but we do know that he had a plan and the skills to carry it out. You may have heard of his work, actually. Charles was the mastermind behind the New Gunpowder Plot.”

To Fitz’s obvious pleasure, several gasps sounded. Jemma fought the desire to roll her eyes at his dramatics. Moving forward to the edge of the sofa, Daphne clasped her hands together like an actress playing a Victorian ingénue. “You mean Sylvia’s fiancé was one of those people? How horribly thrilling!”

Iris made a disapproving noise around her cigarette. Evenly, Larry said, “Just horrible, Daph.”

As though she hadn’t heard him, she asked breathlessly, “And Sylvia? Did she know?”

Fitz’s eyebrows drew into a question as he glanced at Jemma, leaving the answer to her. Her heart thumping two beats quicker than usual, she said “She knew Mark was going around with this crowd, but she didn’t know—no one knew—what they meant to do until it had been stopped.” She took a slow but subtle breath to calm her nerves—she hadn’t lied, and the Osbournes had no reason to know how close she and Sylvia had been to treason. “He wouldn’t tell her anything anyway, even if he knew it. Which he didn’t.”

To her relief, Fitz smoothly took back the wheel. “One of the best ways to keep a secret from getting out is to ensure no one knows all its parts, something Charles learned from Guy Fawkes and took to heart. He didn’t share his plans with his followers, asking them to follow him blindly, and they believed in his message enough—or were angry enough, or revolutionary enough, or blinded enough—to do so. Mark was no different. You know how, at school, an older boy exerts influence over younger ones who want to be noticed, dropping crumbs of attention so the younger ones will wait on them hand and foot?” Larry and Budgie nodded. So, Jemma noticed with surprise, did Iris and Daphne. Her school experience apparently lacked common touchstones. “Charles must have been that older boy. Mark was certainly the latter. His hero worship extended even to the point that he grew a mustache to mimic Charles.”

Iris stubbed out her inch-long cigarette and lit another, taking a long drag before she spoke. “Forgive me for wondering, but this does have something to do with our father in the end?”

“It does.”

“Why would we bother you with it otherwise?”

Larry bit back a smile at their crosstalk. Iris’s eyebrows appeared over the rims of her glasses. “I beg your pardon.”

Jemma granted it with an imperious incline of her head. Fitz, slower to forgive interruptions, continued without acknowledging it. “Mark would do anything Charles asked of him. So Charles came to Mark with a special request: he knew, through one of his many methods, that Mark had been invited to the Osbourne benefit. Could Mark—”

“Kill my father?” Daphne leapt to her feet, eyes blazing. “Why? What purpose would that serve? That dirty rat, that snake—oh, I can’t believe we invited him—”

Fitz started forward by instinct, reaching to grip her flailing wrists. “Miss Osbourne, Miss Osbourne! It wasn’t like that. Please, let us—”

“What do you mean it wasn’t like that? How else could it be?”

“Several ways,” Jemma said firmly, “and one of them is the correct one, we think. If you’ll calm yourself and sit down, we’ll tell you.”

She hadn’t expected that to work, but it did. Fitz shot her a surprised look and returned to his place at her side, gesturing for her to continue. “Charles didn’t want Mark to kill your father. As you say, that serves no purpose, and Charles didn’t do anything without good reason. No. He needed something else: money. Planning a coup requires a great deal of it, and Charles’s people had an ideological aversion to earning it for themselves, so they lived off other people like leeches. Mark tried to convince Sylvia to give him her inheritance from your father, which she refused.” Jemma watched a spark flare up in Mrs. Osbourne’s dull gaze and knew she hadn’t missed that solution—Sylvia wouldn’t take the money for reasons that had nothing to do with Mr. Osbourne. “That was after this, of course. Charles had his eye on robbery, not murder—and how easy to do it at a party, with people milling about everywhere, unlikely to notice a person slipping away, unlikely to realize what happened until long after you had made your escape?”

From his place by the window, Larry stirred. “Perhaps I’m being awfully blind,” he said apologetically, “but I don’t see how that could be…because we would surely notice the necklace missing and raise the hue and cry, as it were.”

They knew before they began that was a weak point in their presentation. Jemma, who had uncharacteristically refused to rehearse an answer, stammered a little, but Fitz had been thinking about it and provided the best answer he had come up with: “We can’t say for sure, of course, but we’ve no proof the thief meant to take the necklace at the beginning. From the newspaper article, it sounds as though your mother surprised him while he was breaking into the safe.”

“You say thief.” Iris nodded, standing and slowly but firmly pressing her cigarette into the ashtray. “You say thief, but you’re speaking of the man who murdered our father and bludgeoned our mother, and you’ve given him a name: Mark Jones. Do you think we won’t attempt to sic the full force of the law upon him just because he’s Sylvia’s fiancé? I’m afraid our shared history isn’t strong enough for that.”

“No,” Fitz said, and Jemma shook her head.

“We’re still calling him ‘the thief’ because there’s more to it, another layer in the cake. Perhaps you’ve already thought of it?”

They all, save Mrs. Osbourne, looked at her blankly. Tossing Fitz an exasperated huff, Jemma explained. “There’s a theft at the Osbournes’ party. Mrs. Osbourne keeps lists of everyone who attends. If Mark comes, he will be under suspicion—not that Charles wouldn’t happily throw Mark to the wolves if necessary, but any inquiries may come too close to touching him and he wouldn’t risk that. Instead, we believe Charles told Mark to stay away and create an alibi, while he came to the party himself.”

Iris sat back down with a thump. No other sounds split the silence.

“I spoke to him there,” Fitz said. “I didn’t know it was Charles or anyone particular, of course, but—” He reached up to the mantelpiece to take down this morning’s paper, already folded open to the photograph accompanying today’s obligatory article about the plot, and crossed the room to hold it out to Iris. Charles’s handsome, not-dead face stared at the ceiling. “Do you remember seeing him at all at the party? Any of you?”

Spiking him with her glare, Iris took the paper with an air of doing him a favor. Fitz darted his own glance away in an attempt to pretend he didn’t care whether she recognized Charles or not, coming to rest on the cluster of photographs he had noticed the last time they were here. The group shot from India, one of Mr. Osbourne alone, one of a younger Daphne and Sylvia in front of an ornate building with a line of fancy squares instead of a sign—or, hang on, no, it couldn’t be them, the hair was too dark to be either of them. The shawls worn by the girls in the picture only looked similar to the brightly colored ones Daphne pulled around her shoulders. Further inspection revealed faint initials: D.J. and R.L. Curious, he thought. Perhaps they were cousins or something.

“I’ve never seen this man before.”

Iris’s brisk denial returned his attention to the matter at hand, and she shook her head before passing the paper to Daphne. “There were so many people there, how could I remember anyone particular?” Daphne nodded agreement, pursing her lips thoughtfully.

Fitz felt his heart sink a little in his chest; behind him, Jemma made a soft, disappointed noise. Without identification, it would be difficult to convince the Osbournes of their conclusions.

Coming to peer over Daphne’s shoulder, Larry swore before flushing an apology. “Sorry, I’ve really been working on drat, like you suggested, Mr. Fitz-Simmons. But yes, I remember this man at the party. He had rather a lot to say about the hypocrisy of the upper classes and made it very unpleasant for his listeners; I told him he had to leave and I thought he did. This is Charles?” At Fitz’s nod, Larry stuck his tongue between his teeth and bit down hard. “Ow! Sorry. Drat didn’t seem strong enough.”

“We believe,” Fitz said with a stifled sigh of relief, “that he did leave the party, only to sneak upstairs and get what he came for. Only it went wrong. He might have intended to slip out the way he came, but with what happened he obviously couldn’t do that without attracting attention. We think it’s possible, maybe even likely, that he had a getaway car in the back alley—anyway, he went out the window, just like the police thought. So you see they were right all along, thinking your father’s death was an accident.”

“I do not see,” Iris retorted, her voice like ice. “That hardly seems like enough motivation. He wanted the emeralds so he attempted to kill two people—it’s entirely unreasonable. There must be a better reason. Someone had to have more motivation.”

“Well,” Fitz said, shrugging, “I’ve never tried to steal ten thousand pounds worth of jewels, but I imagine it makes one nervous as a cat. It’s impossible to say what one might do on a reflex, I think.”

He didn’t need Jemma’s quick reproach to know he had said the wrong thin. Iris shot him a withering glare and pursed her mouth in preparation to spit some venom. Graciously attempting to ward it off, Jemma added quickly, “of course other people had more motivation. For example, you, Mrs. Evans, might need the money, or you, Miss Osbourne, or perhaps you, Mr. Osbourne, struck out at your father in a fit of righteous anger like the parson in Chesterton’s story. There’s a great deal we don’t know.”

In the corner, Budgie rose nearly majestically to his feet. “If you’re insinuating that my wife—”

“I’m not,” Jemma said. “I’m not insinuating such a dreadful thing about any of you, because I don’t believe it.” She paused to make eye contact with each of them, ending and holding with Mrs. Osbourne. The older woman tightened her lips before returning her gaze to the handkerchief. “All of you had reason to be glad he was dead and yet, when we asked you about it, each of you expressed your regret, almost _in spite_ of your reasons. Sylvia said the same thing. He might have been a difficult man to live with, but he appears to have been an easy man to love. Whatever motivation you had, it wasn’t stronger than your fondness for your father.”

Iris dropped her hot, smoldering eyes to her lap and took a long drag of her cigarette. Beside her, tears rolled down Daphne’s face, and their brother put a hand on each of their shoulders. Budgie cleared his throat and sat back down, instantly forgotten.

Larry collected himself first. “I do apologize,” he said, “but you can surely see why we would like to be a little more certain. That this man was at the party is clear enough, but that he did any of the rest of these things—can’t two clever people such as yourselves find more proof?”

Beside her, Fitz sucked in a quick breath and stared at the carpet. Jemma wished she could do the same. “We would if we could, but I’m afraid it’s impossible. The only one who can tell us what happened is Charles, and Charles is dead.”

“Dead!” they all cried at once, Daphne flinging the paper from her with a little scream. Mrs. Osbourne went white as a sheet.

Fitz indicated the paper with his chin. “That article’s all about it. Apparently the police found his body under a bridge—looks like he had a handy cyanide pill on him in case his plot went kaput in a very different way than he intended. And so that’s the end of Charles, and good riddance.”

“Well, what about Sylvia’s fiancé?” Larry asked, coming around the end of the sofa to place one hand on his mother’s shoulder. “You think he was part of this, perhaps he could—”

“We know he was part of this,” Fitz corrected with a quick glance at Jemma. Nodding her understanding, she turned to retrieve the second item from the mantelpiece. The brown paper parcel weighed far more heavily in her hands than it should have, and the soft clatter as she placed it in Mrs. Osbourne’s lap sounded more like the roar of a rockslide. Jemma watched the older woman carefully. Did she know? From the way her shoulders tensed under Larry’s comforting hand, it seemed so.

Mrs. Osbourne took the end of the string between two fingers and held it, her hand shaking too much to pull. “Let me, Mater,” Larry said kindly, and put his hand over hers.

Without speaking, she shook him off and gave the string a quick, decisive tug, unfolding the paper to lay its contents bare in her lap before she buried her face in her hands. Daphne shrieked again. “Well, I’ll be—” Larry breathed, leaving what exactly he would be up to his listener’s imagination.

“What is it?” Budgie asked, scarcely exerting himself enough to see.

“The emeralds,” Jemma said quietly.

Iris sucked in a quick breath. “But they were—how—”

“Sylvia found them in Mark’s rooms,” Fitz explained, clearing his throat to regain at least a little of their attention. They seemed unable to look away from the green harbinger of disaster in Mrs. Osbourne’s lap. “She went for another reason entirely and stumbled across them. We think Charles must have asked Mark to keep them. Keep it all in the family, as it were. Taking advantage of their superficial resemblance, Charles set himself up with the perfect scapegoat.”

“If Mark procured the invitation,” Iris said with blue flame in her voice, “and Mark had the emeralds, I don’t understand why you assume he knows nothing of any of this. He might not have done the murder, but he sounds every bit as guilty as this Charles.”

“Yes,” Jemma agreed, returning to her place at Fitz’s side, “his knowledge of the crime and failure to provide any information would make him an accessory, likely, in a court of law. But I sincerely doubt he knows more about what happened than any of us and quite probably even less. What reason would Charles have to tell him? And how could he trust Mark to keep it secret? More to the point, he’s vanished into thin air—figuratively, of course, since that’s impossible literally. You’re welcome, of course, to attempt hunting him down. Sylvia would very much like to slap him if you succeed.”

“We know it isn’t much,” Fitz said, returning his hands to his pockets. “Honestly, we questioned if we ought to even bother you with our theory. You did ask, though, and we feel fairly confident we’ve hit upon the correct solution. We’re sorry there’s no more we can tell you.”

In unison, they nodded briskly, having rested their case—a feeble one, Jemma knew, that would never hold up to a jury’s scrutiny. Fortunately, it only had to convince five people, or three, or two, of its truthfulness. The rest would have to make their peace with the facts. And they would, she expected. Already Budgie rustled in the back corner, patting his pockets for a cigarette, and Daphne reached out to pull the flung paper back towards her. “I suppose,” she said hesitantly, “it’s rather a big thing, isn’t it? Dad was killed by a man who wanted to bring down the government. He was almost a martyr, wasn’t he?”

Fitz opened his mouth and closed it again, obviously thinking the better of what he meant to say. Larry, who certainly knew the proper definition of martyr, only squeezed his sister’s shoulder.

She refolded the paper to hide Charles’s face and laid it flat against the coffee table. “I think I can accept that solution. Especially if this man is dead—I wish he had died for what he did to Dad, but cyanide is a nasty way to go according to all the books, so I suppose he suffered enough.”

Jemma stiffened. Charles wasn’t the first person she knew to die of cyanide poisoning; however dreadful he had been and how much he deserved to die, she wouldn’t wish that death on anyone. At least hanging was generally quick. Fitz slid an inch closer to her. “Yes, well, I think we can safely say he suffered more than he would have done being hanged. If you’re out for revenge.”

“Which we shouldn’t be,” said Larry. His family turned to look at him with gimlet eye, and he sought support from Fitz and Jemma. “Well, because, ‘vengeance is mine, saith the Lord, I shall repay’? It sounds like Charles was an unhappy man and died badly, and though we trust in God’s mercy that will be the only hope he has.”

Jemma made what she hoped was a sympathetic face. “Amen,” Fitz said, a little awkwardly.

Larry’s face twisted up. “Although if I’m perfectly honest, I hope God decides to be just instead of merciful. If it was my decision he would rot in prison for the rest of his miserable life.”

Trying not to imagine Charles’s already rotting, miserable death, Jemma turned to the last member of the family. “Mrs. Evans? Can you be content with our solution?”

Iris huffed out a hollow laugh before standing, shaking her head as she wrapped her arms tightly around her middle. “Accept it or not, it doesn’t change what happened, does it? I thought perhaps knowing would help me to tie up the parcel and put it away on the shelf, but it doesn’t. My father was still murdered. My mother still attacked. What does knowing why matter? No, Larry”—she held up her hand to stall his movement—“please, not now. I rather think I’d like to go home.”

As though the words were a starting pistol, Budgie shot forwards, taking his wife gently by the elbow. “Of course, darling,” he said as tenderly as Fitz would say it to Jemma. “I’ll take you there straight away.”

They moved slowly through the room, their steady tread keeping time to a silent dirge. On the doorstep, Iris turned to look back. “I suppose I should thank you.”

“It was no trouble,” Jemma said, only half-untruthfully, and Fitz added, “we wish we could do more.”

“You’ve done,” Iris said, “quite enough. Goodbye, Mother. I’ll come see you next week. Sorry I can’t stay for tea.”

For only the second time since they had come in, Mrs. Osbourne spoke. Creaky and faltering, she hardly sounded like the same strong woman they had interviewed here only a few weeks ago. “That’s all right, Iris. Actually, I’d like to speak to Mr. and Mrs. Fitz-Simmons alone.”

“But tea!” Daphne cried, as desolate as though it was the only tragedy she had ever known.

Larry stooped to place a kind hand on each of her upper arms. “Come on, Daffy. We can go to any tea shop you like and I’ll buy you two different kinds of cake.”

She went easily, settling her scarves with a practiced hand as he led her to the door. “I know the most darling one,” she said, “the Fitz-Simmons went with me several weeks ago—wasn’t it charming?—and I think we’ll have lemon and Victoria sponge. No, perhaps Battenburg. Or—”

“Oh, I say.” Larry stopped sharply, leaving Daphne to continue her cake considerations down the corridor. His forehead creased with the effort of his thoughts. “What are we to do about the emeralds? The police ought to be told, I expect, so they can make more inquiries. Perhaps find this Mark after all.”

Mrs. Osbourne’s voice came clearly, cutting off their silent conversation. “As Iris so rightly reminded us,” she said, “your father is still dead. So, we may believe, is the man who killed him. If Sylvia’s fiancé knows anything about it, I expect the guilt will be quite enough punishment for him.”

“True.” His frown remained another few moments before clearing like an April day. “Well, at least we know the truth, and the truth sets one free, et cetera. I’ll send Daphne back with some biscuits for you, Mother. Your favorite. Thank you, Mr. and Mrs. Fitz-Simmons. I’ll hope to see you again soon in more pleasant circumstances.”

The door closed behind him. Fitz and Jemma looked at Mrs. Osbourne; their pulses where their fingertips brushed behind Jemma’s skirt ran a tandem race. Mrs. Osbourne carefully folded the brown paper back up over the necklace and deliberately placed it over the newspaper that bore Charles’s face. Then she met their solemn gazes and her lined face turned to melting candle wax, all spark of life snuffed out to leave only trailing smoke.

“Thank you,” she said, “for not telling my children the truth.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I couldn't have put up this chapter without significant help from both my nameless encouragement beta and agent-85—each of you deserves ten thousand pounds of thanks!
> 
> Just a few more left, people! If I'm productive this week you MAY see a second chapter. Perhaps.


	30. FitzSimmons Sit In A Room And Listen

“We did tell them the truth,” Fitz said. “Just not all of it.”

Jemma’s hand found his and pulled it to rest behind her back. He wondered if she could feel it trembling. Neither of them had much practice with this sort of thing—their natural honesty and learned professional insistence on the importance of the whole truth made lies, even of omission, strange in their mouths. More than once over the last two days one of them looked at the other and said “but are you _sure_?”—sure they had come to the right conclusion, sure they had made the right choice, sure there wasn’t another way. Fitz still didn’t know the answers to the last two questions. The answer to the first, however, was clear from Mrs. Osbourne’s huddled figure.

Clutching his hand tightly for comfort—his and hers, it didn’t matter—Jemma wrapped her voice in velvet, treading as softly as though Mrs. Osbourne really was nothing more than the grieving widow she pretended to be. “We didn’t see any reason to upset your children, not when we haven’t any proof. They’ve only got one parent left; it would be cruel to destroy that relationship as well.”

“Oh,” Mrs. Osbourne said somewhere between a laugh and a sob, “it’s destroyed already. Our lived ended the instant my husband came into the study. His only ended more quickly than mine.” Her great brown eyes turned to the murky puddles that collected in gutters after rain. “But you know all that already, don’t you? Somehow you’ve found out my secret. What was it, hmm? Or does Mr. Fitz-Simmons have the second sight? I never believed in it before, but I don’t see how you could know.”

“No uncanny gifts necessary,” he said, squashing his displeasure at the casual generalization. “Looking at it all together, the evidence pointed pretty clearly. That didn’t make it any easier to believe.”

“Or understand,” Jemma said. “Why did you protect Charles, Mrs. Osbourne? You didn’t—forgive me—there wasn’t any sort of—”

She couldn’t bring herself to speak aloud even a firmer allusion, and Fitz didn’t blame her. The one fact they had hung their hats on was that the Osbournes were _devoted_ to each other. If that had been a lie—

But Mrs. Osbourne rapped a sharp denial. “An affair? No. No, never. I loved my husband more than any one person in the world. You would never say that if you knew what it was like between us.”

“We understand,” Jemma began, “we do know what it’s like—”

“No—you think you love each other, but you don’t—at least, you can’t, not yet—not without three children and two continents and thirty years—” The sob burst from her throat, blowing a gaping hole in her façade, and she began to weep, all shuddering breaths and great, ugly tears that couldn’t be contained by the scrap of handkerchief she still clutched. Fitz dug in his pocket for his larger one and brought it over to her, looking quickly away as soon as she took it. His eyes slid over the large silver candlesticks to Jemma, who pursed her lips and canted her head. _Answers, Fitz._

 _Give her a moment_ , he pleaded.

Her eyes darted between them, softening when they returned to his. He held out his hand, certain Mrs. Osbourne wouldn’t see or care, and when she came to take it he tugged her to the sofa and folded her fingers around hers while they waited for the sobs to subside.

When her gasps turned to slow, shaky breaths, Mrs. Osbourne looked at them blearily. “I beg your pardon. But please do me the courtesy of not pretending you understand.”

“You’re right,” Jemma said, “we don’t understand. We know what happened, but we don’t know why, and we can’t seem to imagine a reason that you would willingly let your husband’s murderer go free. If something happened to Fitz—” He bumped his knee against hers, and she stopped to regain control. “Nothing would keep me from ensuring justice was served, I mean. Why, Mrs. Osbourne?”

Mrs. Osbourne sucked her lips over her teeth and closed her eyes. “I was—I had to. I couldn’t let him be caught. If he was, all our hopes for a New Britain would die with him.”

She stopped, opening her eyes to see the effect of her words. If she expected them to be surprised or alarmed, she was sorely disappointed. He didn’t react at all. Jemma only nodded, meeting his eye with a hint of regretful triumph. “We knew you belonged to Charles’s group—at least, we knew you had to be connected to them.”

Mrs. Osbourne’s wet eyes widened. “How? I never went to the meetings; I didn’t know more than one or two of the group at all. I didn’t know Sylvia’s fiancé had anything to do with them until—”

“Until you needed to?”

“Until Charles told you to make sure he was on the guest list for the benefit?”

She glanced between them, breathing quickly through her nose. “Yes. How—”

The corner of Jemma’s mouth twitched. “Sylvia said, and Daphne and Iris confirmed, that Mark wasn’t meant to attend. But if so, he wouldn’t have been let in, because your butler keeps a list to prevent gate-crashing. Who else could have made sure he wasn’t unceremoniously ejected before accomplishing his goal?”

Though they hadn’t known about the guest list before they came, that information only confirmed what they already guessed. Daphne had only hoped for Mark’s attendance, suggesting she hadn’t specifically invited him; Sylvia, however, remembered the invitation had included him by name.

_“It was strange,” she told them, looking into the fire, “we didn’t put an announcement in the paper or anything like that, so I couldn’t see how they knew his name.”_

_“Was it written or printed?” Jemma asked._

_She thought for a minute. “Written. I believe Mrs. Osbourne handwrites most of her invitations.”_

“That doesn’t explain by itself,” Mrs. Osbourne said, setting her jaw. “There were so many people there; any of them could have brought him in as their guest.”

“Is that what happened?” Fitz asked, knowing the answer.

Mrs. Osbourne glared. “You say you already know.”

“We do.” He conferred silently with Jemma, who nodded encouragingly. “That wasn’t the only clue. If it had been just that, we could have explained it away.”

“We did try,” Jemma added.

“What else?”

Fitz put his hand on the back of his neck. “The papers.”

_“I’ve got it!” Aaron shouted, waving the paper over his head. “Thank goodness for Scottish frugality. Most people use kindling to light their fires nowadays, you realize?”_

_Fitz huffed and Jemma rolled her eyes. “What does it say, Aaron?”_

_Scanning quickly, he mumbled half-phrases until he found what Fitz had vaguely remembered. “Yes, here it is. ‘The group communicated information through encoded advertisements and personals in a variety of newspapers. Agents decoded,’ et cetera, et cetera. So?”_

“Daphne told us that you had been pouring over all the papers after your husband died. She suspected an affair, but it wasn’t that. At least, not that kind of affair.”

“For all the good it did—I’ve heard nothing from them since it happened. Not a solitary word.”

Jemma glanced over her shoulder at the window. “Did they send you messages from the park, too?”

Mrs. Osbourne’s lips tightened. So yes then, Fitz thought.

“But it was really the necklace,” Jemma continued. “Although you told us it was paste, your children were all convinced it was real. You might have lied to them earlier, we knew, but if so why not tell them the truth now? It might have convinced them to obey your wishes and drop the investigation, in time; it certainly did us. So then perhaps you lied to us. If so, it couldn’t have been for any other reason than that you wanted us to give up the investigation. But why did you want that so badly, when your children all but begged us to make inquires?”

“Larry didn’t,” she said.

“Larry wouldn’t,” Fitz responded. “Larry places your wishes above his own, and Larry finds solace in other places than earthly justice or revenge.” Jemma raised an eyebrow at him, and he shrugged with one shoulder. “Daphne might have moved on, Iris would never make a fuss—surely it would have died a natural death in time. Why should we find anything when the police hadn’t?”

_“The one fact we can’t argue away,” Fitz groaned. “It’s too incredible, though.”_

_“But what other explanation is there?” Jemma argued for the twelfth time, slightly queasy but confident._

_Aaron turned to Sylvia, who had been silent for most of the conversation. “You know her, don’t you? Or you did. Do you think it’s possible that she would lie about it, and for this reason?”_

_Biting her lip, Sylvia stared into the fire. “I think,” she said after a moment, “it’s likely.”_

“You knew Sylvia,” Mrs. Osbourne whispered. “I didn’t know what she knew or would say.”

“You didn’t guess why she wouldn’t take her inheritance?” Jemma asked, head canted curiously.

“She might not have known anything concrete, but she’s clever and so are you. I couldn’t risk it.”

Troubled, Jemma didn’t even slightly preen at the compliment to her intelligence, as was her wont. “What did you think would happen if anyone found the necklace?”

“He promised no one would. He meant to break it up and sell the stones individually, he had a man he thought he could trust—”

They spoke over each other:

“Then he planned to get the necklace?”

“He wasn’t trying to get into the safe at all, then?”

“It’s rather disconcerting when you do that,” Mrs. Osbourne said, and sighed. “So you don’t know, then, what happened. You only know how it came to happen.”

Jemma looked at Fitz, who looked back at her. “We may,” she admitted, “have certain lacunae in our knowledge.”

“And you expect me to fill them, I assume?”

“We don’t expect anything,” Fitz said. “You were the one who asked us to speak to us. We meant to leave things as they were.”

Brushing down her skirt, Jemma got to her feet. “We can leave right now if you like. We know the truth, your children are satisfied, and you have your necklace back—really, our part in this business is over. Please don’t feel you have to tell us anything.”

Fitz stood as well, ready to follow Jemma’s lead. Part of him regretted that they wouldn’t know the whole truth, of course, but they knew more of it than anyone but the parties involved, and the secret would be more than enough to bear already. “Er, you may keep the handkerchief,” he said uneasily. “I’ve heaps of them; my mother hems them when she’s listening to the BBC to calm her nerves.”

He placed his hand at the small of Jemma’s back, meaning to direct her towards the door, but she turned away from it to brush past him and sit on the corner of the sofa nearest Mrs. Osbourne. Like a bird, her gloved handed landed over Mrs. Osbourne’s clenched fists. “Please know that Fitz and I are the very souls of discretion, a fact”—and she gave him a weighted sidelong glance—“that has been made all too apparent of late. We see no need to spread this information around. Whatever you’ve done, it hasn’t anything to do with us.”

He nodded his agreement, though Mrs. Osbourne had her eyes trained on Jemma’s hand and couldn’t see it. “Quite so. I’m trusted by the government to keep secrets, so. I think you can trust me as well.”

“I do,” Mrs. Osbourne said, her creaking voice returning with a shivery sheen. “That’s why I’d like to tell you all about it.” She looked up then, suddenly determined and urgent; her back seemed straighter and her skin less loose. “I can’t—I don’t think I can bear this weight by myself.”

Jemma tightened her grip. “I believe there’s something in the Bible about bearing each other’s burdens—Larry would know.”

“Saint Paul,” Fitz said.

Both women looked at him quickly, like his interjection was no more than a fly buzzing into the window, and returned to staring at their clasped hands. “I know,” Jemma said, “that everything that worries me is much easier when Fitz knows it as well.”

“That was so with Stafford, as well.”

It took a moment for Fitz to realize she meant Mr. Osbourne. The intimate use of the Christian name startled him a bit; in this whole investigation, no one had called him by anything more than his public or positional name. ‘Mr. Osbourne’, even ‘dad’ or ‘pater’ allowed some measure of distance from the man himself. ‘Stafford’, though. Once he had been a young man in love with a young woman who had a given name of her own—perhaps he had given her a pet name, or she him—and they had married, and called each other all sorts of things throughout the course of their thirty years together. He wondered if Stafford Osbourne ever called his wife just to hear her say “hullo, Stafford,” as he sometimes called Jemma to hear her delighted “Fitz!” He thought about the way Jemma said his name as though it was her favorite word in the entirety of the OED, and how he had longed to be able to use hers when they first met. He imagined Mrs. Osbourne never hearing her own name in her favorite voice again. Suddenly catching the steady, steely gaze of the dead man from the photograph on the table, Fitz felt as though the very vocalization of his name had conjured up his ghost. Which was nonsense, of course, but a creeping chill up the spine all the same.

“Tell me,” Jemma encouraged.

Mrs. Osbourne shook her head. “I can’t. You may know, someday, but it’s not anything that one can explain—it sounds foolish and fantastic, like a fairy story.”

Jemma didn’t have to meet his eyes for him to know the look she wore, and he directed his towards the spot below her ear she liked for him to kiss. To his surprise, he could pick out goose-pimples on her neck, even from this distance. “Everybody says that about you, even now. Your children, your friends—I hope when Fitz and I have been married thirty years people say the same of us.”

Mrs. Osbourne’s mouth twisted up into a painful smile. “For so long, he was my whole life. Nothing else mattered at all beside him.”

The way she said it sounded like a sad story. It _was_ a sad story, Fitz reminded himself, because Mr. Osbourne died and somehow Mrs. Osbourne had to keep living. But it was more than that, as well. Jemma did turn to look at him now, her gaze heavy with the same melancholy he felt weighing his chest. _Her whole life_. _Can that be right?_

He bit his lip as he considered the question. Jemma was the best part of his life, the thing that brought him the most joy, the part that he wished could fill every moment of his day. But when she was away—before he knew her—he still had Mam, and the Black Silk Trio, and his work. If, God forbid, something happened to her, he would feel as though he had no more than half a heart, but eventually, he would survive. _I want to share my whole life with you. But you aren’t it._

She nodded, just a little, relief washing across her face. “Did something happen to change that, Mrs. Osbourne?”

“Not to begin.”

She didn’t seem inclined to elaborate, though Fitz and Jemma waited patiently. Fitz squirmed under Stafford Osbourne’s blank gaze. “How did it begin?” he asked, finally, “Perhaps you can tell us that much, at least.”

Sighing heavily, Mrs. Osbourne fought back a new flood of tears. “Innocently— _so_ innocently. I saw a…friend, an old friend I hadn’t seen for many years, at a benefit for the victims of the Spanish war. She opened my eyes to the atrocities happening in the world and in our own country, and once I knew about them I had to do something, didn’t I? What’s the purpose to having money if one simply hoards it?”

They nodded, holding similar views on the subject.

“But Stafford—” She glanced at the same photograph that seemed to be staring at Fitz. “He wouldn’t have understood.”

“Understood why you wanted to give money?” Jemma asked. “His will suggests he was a very charitable man.”

“If that was all, he might have.” Mrs. Osbourne shook her head. “But how could it be? Money doesn’t solve every ill, whatever one believes when one hasn’t got it. There are problems that can never be eradicated as long as it’s business as usual. We must sweep away the old to put new, better structures and figures into place.”

Jemma shifted uneasily, dropping her eyes. Hearing the echoes of the papers, Fitz guessed where the story would wend. “Enter Charles.”

A light came into Mrs. Osbourne’s face, and she leaned forward earnestly. “My friend introduced us. Charles understood—he knew—he would help set everything to rights. He only needed monetary aid, which I could gladly provide. You spoke of him as a puppet master and wished him good riddance, but if you had known him—if you had met him, just once, you would have seen what hope he shone into darkness.”

Fitz’s stomach roiled. Mrs. Osbourne’s glowing, shining ecstasy reminded him a bit of his mother’s face in church, but more frightening—rather than the peace Jean radiated, Mrs. Osbourne exuded potential disaster. Fitz checked himself, acknowledging his bias. Now that he knew what Charles meant to do condemnation came easily, but Jemma said that no one had really known before, and he couldn’t blame Mrs. Osbourne without experiencing the beatific vision she claimed to have seen.

“I have met him.”

He and Mrs. Osbourne both looked quickly at Jemma, startled for different reasons, as she finally removed her hand and slid back on the sofa. “You have?” Mrs. Osbourne said, confusion flickering with delight in her eyes, “then you’ll understand, Mrs. Fitz-Simmons. You saw what he was like. I never heard anything like him before. He had the tongue of angels and the vision to match it.”

Jemma felt her face hardening, could see it in Fitz’s concerned expression. Perhaps it wasn’t politic, but she couldn’t help herself—if she didn’t, she might be sick on the Oriental carpet. The devil had been an angel once, she thought; Charles followed in those footsteps, twisting the truth to terrible results. How had so many people been hoodwinked by his flash-and-glitter promises? But more, how had respectable people like Mrs. Osbourne come to believe him so strongly? She still didn’t know. She wasn’t sure that she’d ever understand. Through clenched teeth, she managed, “He certainly knew how to tell people what they wanted most to hear. And to get what he wanted from them.”

Mrs. Osbourne seemed oblivious to the veiled criticism. “At first I gave them money out of my allowance, which he didn’t care about, but then Charles needed more. Of course, I was happy to give whatever I could; only I couldn’t think of where to get it. I had just convinced my husband to sell the stocks for Larry. I couldn’t possibly ask for more.”

“So you thought of the necklace?” Fitz asked.

She nodded. “I couldn’t just give it to Charles. There would be questions. Nor could I turn it to paste without Stafford knowing. It had to be this way.”

“Did you plan the theft or did he?”

“He did, of course. I’m not clever enough to come up with all that. I knew I could do it. There were so many people I knew I wouldn’t be missed, and no one knew him to miss him, of course…we meant to meet in the study and he would leave the party with the necklace while I waited til he was well gone to scream and wail to direct everyone’s attention elsewhere. It was a perfect plan. It ought to have worked. It would have worked, only—”

“Only Mr. Osbourne came in,” Jemma said, brisk almost to the point of ruthlessness. “He followed you and caught you and Charles together.”

Mrs. Osbourne sucked in a quick gasp, dislodging some tears.

They could finish the story from there, Jemma knew. A quick glance at Fitz confirmed that he, too, felt Mr. Osbourne’s confusion and betrayal as if it was his own, knew intimately the dismay and horror Mrs. Osbourne would have felt as well. And Charles? He might have been panicked and lashed out to protect himself, but it seemed equally if not more likely that he calculated the risk and decided Osbourne alive was a bigger one than Osbourne dead.

“Did you know he meant to hit you as well?” Fitz asked, taking the question from her own mind. It would be the height of irony if the one fact that pointed to Mrs. Osbourne’s innocence would end up being the one that resulted from her guilt.

“I can’t remember.”

“You can’t?”

“Recall, Fitz,” Jemma said, clasping her arms tightly across her belly, “head injuries often result in loss of memory. It’s astounding she remembers anything of the evening at all, with the trauma and the shock.” She gave Mrs. Osbourne a poignant look from the corner of her eye. “It didn’t stop her from giving an anonymous interview to the papers, though.”

“What?” He looked from her to Mrs. Osbourne, who nodded behind his handkerchief.

“That was part of the plan from the start, to divert suspicion—but it had to be anonymous, because I truly didn’t remember anything. Newspapermen are so ignorant, really, they didn’t know I couldn’t be expected to know. And the family didn’t even think to question me. Everybody believed what I told them, just as he said they would.”

In fact it had worked just as Charles intended, the murder only providing an even better distraction from the theft of the emeralds than his original plan. Perhaps he had been forced to hide the jewels a little longer than intended, but it hadn’t hampered his plans at all; whether by outside fundraising as he attempted to do with Jemma or more scurrilous methods, Charles had everything in place when he needed it. Even now, in his disgrace and death, the only reason they had any idea he was tied to the Osbourne murder was the loyalty and residual love of Sylvia Forbes. If she cared for Mark a little less, the whole thing would remain a mystery forever. Which struck Jemma as ironic, really. Mrs. Osbourne, with her devotion and thirty years, kept it secret; Sylvia, washing her hands of a man who didn’t deserve her, brought it to light.

“So,” Mrs. Osbourne said, holding out her hands with her palms open to the ceiling, “you know, now. I am responsible for my husband’s death, and I am why his killer roams free. Or roamed, rather. Since he is dead too and it was all for _nothing_. All this guilt and sorrow, and no good will come from it at all.”

Jemma shot to her feet, pushing past Fitz’s knees to stride towards the fireplace. She spoke without turning around, the lines of her shoulders and back taut and her hands in tight fists. “You would trade your husband’s _life_ for this utopia Charles promised?”

“You know nothing of it!”

Jemma whirled to face Mrs. Osbourne, chin up and shoulders back, flanked on either side by the shining silver candlesticks. Mrs. Osbourne put one hand on the arm of the chair and heaved herself up to stand on unsteady feet, her eyes shooting sparks at Jemma’s unyielding figure. Fitz rose as well, one hand out to catch Mrs. Osbourne if she fell, one outstretched towards her. Pushing his hand away, Mrs. Osbourne threw the handkerchiefs to the floor. “You can’t understand my love but oh, I understand yours. You think nothing in the world matters so much. And it doesn’t, not to you. Stafford wasn’t only my whole life, he was my whole _world_ ; with him I forgot such a thing as anyone else existed. And then I realized I was wrong. There’s a whole world of people with their own lives, their own love, and sometimes one has to sacrifice for them. Charles understood that. Stafford would not.”

“I’m afraid I can’t fault him that! I do understand sacrifice, and I’m learning to recognize the necessary compromises. But I can think of nothing that would make me compromise Fitz so finally, not to mention our _country_. What could possibly be more important than that?”

“It’s the Jews, isn’t it?”

In tandem, the two women now turned to Fitz, his quiet but sure question tamping down the threat of fire between them. Jemma’s eyes, wide and deep, awaited an explanation; Mrs. Osbourne sank back into the chair and buried her head in her hands. “Just, er, the candlesticks,” he said, gesturing lamely, “they’re very old, aren’t they? They’ve been in your family a long time? But then they should be kept with the rest of the silver, I think—at least, so I’m told—and these are out and displayed. And my school chum, he’s Jewish, and his mother has some very like them. So I thought, perhaps.”

“She does?” Jemma asked, her eyebrows crinkling. “I didn’t notice.”

“You were a bit distracted when you were there,” he said. “I’ve seen them before.”

Her forehead furrowed deeper. “Aaron’s mother is called Rachel, like Sylvia’s mother. Was she Jewish?” She directed the question to Mrs. Osbourne. “You were friends when you were girls; you would know.”

“Of course.” Twisting slightly, Fitz picked a photograph off the table and held it out to her. “Look, here—I thought it was Sylvia and Daphne, but the clothes are wrong, and the shawls, and this isn’t squares, it’s their writing.”

Jemma picked out each detail as he named it: the two girls with hair much darker than either Sylvia’s or Daphne’s despite the resemblance. Their clothes, obviously of an earlier era. The initials. And, as he said, the curious square writing she recognized from shop windows in Golders Green, clearly naming the building behind them with the English translation much smaller below: _synagogue._ Handing it back, she let out a slow breath. “Is it true?”

Mrs. Osbourne raised her head just enough to see the top button of Jemma’s frock. “Yes, she was Jewish. So was—so _am_ I. Rachel Levy and Deborah Jacobs. That’s who we were.”

Fitz returned to his seat with a _thwump_ , attempting ease and failing miserably. “That’s why, Jemma,” he said. “Charles meant to destroy the government and blame it on the Fascists—it would mean war against Hitler, surely. You know what he’s done to the Jews this week alone, and it’s been going on for years—”

Mrs. Osbourne’s voice crackled and burned: “And no one in our government will help them. But the new government would. Charles promised new policies. Anyone who escaped would be welcome. He swore to me with tears in his eyes he wouldn’t rest until Germany and Austria’s Jewry had a new home in England.”

Jemma’s gaze was eloquent when it met Fitz’s. Neither had any real expectation Charles cared about Europe’s Jewry, any more than he truly wanted Jemma’s chemical expertise or thought Mark a valuable member of the Cause. Unaware of the multitudes passing between them, Mrs. Osbourne fixed her eyes on the candlesticks and spoke dazedly, almost to herself.

“My parents sat shiva for me, I heard, when I married Stafford, but I didn’t care. I left the faith long before. He didn’t know I had ever been Jewish—Rachel and I escaped our community and got lost in London, became artists, fell in love. We didn’t need the old ways. Stafford meant to be my future—I didn’t need anything or anyone else, I thought. But once God’s chosen always God’s chosen, I suppose. When I learned what was happening, what was truly happening, I felt like my insides were being turned into lemon squash. I couldn’t sit idly by. They were my people, after all.”

“But surely,” Jemma said, “there was something else you could do. Something not so drastic. Jewish aid organizations—there must be some that don’t require revolution.”

Mrs. Osbourne blinked, seemingly surprised Jemma was still there. “Drastic times, drastic measures.”

“Weren’t you frightened?” Jemma stepped forward as though her desire for the answer pulled her closer to its source. “For your husband, if not yourself. I was afraid for Fitz—though, I suppose, he was anxious about Fitz because he saw him at the party, not because he was a threat to Charles’s plots. I kept it secret from him to keep him safe. Is that why you didn’t simply tell Mr. Osbourne?”

“Or perhaps,” Fitz added, having thought of something else while Jemma spoke, “you were frightened of what he would do to Charles if he knew?”

“Neither.” She shook her head. “Telling him about Charles would mean telling my husband I lied to him all our lives.”

“But he would forgive you,” Fitz said confidently, turning just enough to see Jemma from the corner of his eye. She made a noise that meant to agree but became distracted halfway through. “Even if he was angry at first, surely he would forgive you.”

Closing her eyes, Mrs. Osbourne quivered. “Forgive? Perhaps. But never forget. He would never look at me the same way again, no matter how much money he left me in his will. He didn’t.”

“Like Sylvia,” Jemma said, “and your son.”

“They could walk away. They had things they cared for more. I had nothing I cared for more than my husband. If I didn’t have him, I had nothing.”

“Well,” Fitz said, “you haven’t got him now.”

Jemma shot him a look as Mrs. Osbourne burst into fresh sobs— _for heaven’s sake—_ and he scrambled to undo the damage. “I only mean, it didn’t work the way you meant it to, anyway. Wouldn’t it have been better to tell him and deal with those consequences than this and these?”

“Oh, what does it matter!” Mrs. Osbourne buried her face in his handkerchief, turning it from crisp white to sopping grey. “Whatever I might have done differently we can’t change what’s happened. My only consolation has been the hope that Charles would succeed and my husband wouldn’t have died without reason, but now Charles is dead and everything will continue as it was and I have nothing at all. I’m glad Charles knocked me over the head and I can’t remember any of it. I wish he had finished the job then so I didn’t have to live my whole life wondering what Stafford looked like when he didn’t love me anymore. That would have been better.”

Fitz stared at his knees, unable to look at the weeping woman. All his training and natural chivalry directed him to comfort her, but his feelings revolted instinctively. Something dreadful had happened to her, certainly, but it was a great deal of her own making—if she had only told her husband the truth about Charles at the beginning, nothing that followed would have happened. Fitz could hardly blame her for that, though; hadn’t he and Jemma done the exact same thing? But that was different. They kept secrets, yes, but only under duress, out of concern for the other person; if either of them had believed it safe, they would have revealed everything in a heartbeat. Mrs. Osbourne hadn’t acted to protect her husband either bodily or emotionally, but only to protect herself. For all that she proclaimed her devotion to her husband and his to her, Fitz wondered what exactly they thought that meant.

Jemma’s hand slid over his shoulder, squeezing slightly. “Mrs. Osbourne,” she said gently, “we’re very sorry for your loss. But we ought to go, I think. As you said, none of us can change what’s happened.”

Mrs. Osbourne lifted empty, hopeless eyes. “I don’t know why I thought it would. Yes, of course. You ought to go.”

As Fitz stood, Jemma’s hand slid down his arm and returned to her side. Her fingers, though, gripped his cuff, and he detached himself to press her hand quickly before indicating she should lead the way. Trailing after her, he caught one final glimpse of the candlesticks. Good intentions gone horribly wrong, he thought, and turned suddenly. “Mrs. Osbourne.”

She could barely lift her head to look at him.

“There are other ways,” he said. “If you’d like, you could change what happens in the future, or at least try.”

“Why bother?” she said, dust and bones. “Nothing will change. Let the world go to hell. It already has, for me.”

Jemma caught Fitz’s gaze. _There’s nothing more to do here, sweetheart._

 _I know_.

They went out into the corridor and closed the door behind them, pretending they didn’t hear the wails from within. Fitz shoved his hands in his pockets and concentrated on the carpet, feeling rather as though a stiff drink would not be amiss. “We did the right thing,” he said quietly. “I still feel rotten.”

He waited for her agreement or reassurance or anything, but she stayed quiet. “Jemma?”

“It’s just,” she said, and he glanced up to find her staring down the hallway, “remember, Fitz, that I said it might have been better for her to die? I find myself a bit. . .”

“Troubled?” he suggested.

“To know that she agrees with me.” She started towards the stairs without meeting his eyes, silent until they stood on the edge of the top step. The sun had begun its descent while they were in with Mrs. Osbourne, and when she stopped to look back at him, the shadows across her face made her eyes dark like stone. “I don’t know how well I would live without you, Fitz.”

He wanted to tell her a great many things: that she was strong enough to survive; that she had more reasons to live than his sorry self; that it would be a disservice to the world for her to leave it just because he did. But he knew what she meant, and knew that none of those answers would suffice. “I feel the same way. Let’s do our best not to find out, yeah?”

Then he offered his hand and she took it, and he led her down the stairs just as she had led them up three months before. And each step they took together felt like a promise.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And there's the end of the mystery! Another huge bouquet of thanks to agent-85 for her assistance.
> 
> There's only one more chapter after this, a celebration in more way than one, and I think you guys will really enjoy it. My question: would you like to save it until next Monday as usual, or get it sometime this week? Weigh in if you like!


	31. There's My Hand, My Trusty Fiere

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Or, A Self-Indulgent Victory Lap

“I can’t say I don’t appreciate the motivation,” Aaron said, stretching from the guest chair to set his empty teacup on the edge of Fitz’s desk, “but the method is rather distasteful.”

Fitz nodded agreement, but Jemma said, “We must remember she didn’t attend the meetings and likely never heard all of what Charles meant to do. You can’t understand how convincing he could be unless you heard him—he was rather like one of those enchanters in fairy stories that weave spells by speaking.”

“Or Scylla—or was it Charybdis?” Aaron squinted at the ceiling.

“Neither,” Fitz said, “you’re thinking of the Sirens.”

“Oh, beg pardon. It isn’t _my_ mythology.”

“It isn’t mine either!” Fitz protested, but Aaron had already returned from their brief digression.

“A Jew all along,” he mused. “Traditionally, people who marry outside the faith are as good as dead, but I rather think we’ll need all the allies we can scrape up. And Sylvia’s mother, too. . . how did she take that news?”

From his spot leaning against the front edge of his desk, Fitz craned his neck to defer to Jemma. She shook her head against the back of his leather chair. “It surprised her, I think, but nothing more—she’s had a good many shocks in the last few weeks and become somewhat numb to them.”

“Poor girl. She doesn’t deserve that.” Aaron scowled at the carpet so hard that Fitz had to look to verify there wasn’t an insect or something worse crawling across it. Jemma merely canted her head and drew her eyebrows together.

“I agree, of course. Happily, I don’t know what’s left in her life to suddenly turn on its head.”

“Mark could come back,” Fitz suggested, and Jemma’s eyebrows shifted from concerned to forbidding.

“Let him try it.”

Fitz and Aaron shared a tiny amount of sympathy for the hapless Mark before Aaron slapped his knees and got to his feet. “Back to the grindstone for me, I’m afraid. Thank you for the tea and proper conclusion to the investigation. I do hate having to turn a book back in without reading the last chapter.”

“Of course,” Jemma said, rising to offer him her hand, “and when the exchanges have settled come and dine with us again. We’ll turn down invitations for you.”

“A true hardship, as you may imagine,” Fitz said drily, shaking Aaron’s hand in his turn.

“I have no doubt. I may be engaged in a project that demands my free evenings for some time, but rest assured I shall avail myself of your hospitality as soon as humanly possible.”

The door closing behind him latched into place with a disproportionate amount of finality. Unlike their last investigation, there remained no statements to give or inquests to attend or testimonies to provide; with Charles dead and Mrs. Osbourne guiltier in her mind than a jury could ever confirm, there was no need. Telling Aaron an abbreviated account of their Osbourne interviews ticked off the last item on their Investigation Memoranda. That done, the case was well and truly closed.

“It feels a bit odd, doesn’t it?” Jemma asked into the silence that followed Aaron’s departure.

Fitz poured the dregs of Aaron’s tea into the black sludge of Jemma’s. “Yes. Like inventing something and filling up the patent application but leaving it in the drawer.”

“What do we do with it?”

“The hypothetical application?”

“Yes.”

“Well.” He clanked the tea things together with more force than care. “I usually try to forget it exists. Otherwise it tends to haunt me. And, you know, there’s always new projects to work on.”

Coming around the desk, she got up on tiptoe to kiss his cheek. “Thank goodness for brains that keep busy.”

At first it seemed that even their busy brains couldn’t distract them—Jemma made more than one schoolgirl error and Fitz confessed to drifting away during several meetings—but in time, the Osbourne Affair became a burble in the background of their lives. There was truly too much else to think about to spend mental energy obsessing over something beyond their control. While October calmed considerably after the powder-keg days at the end of September, November began with an assassination and a new wave of violence and restrictions against German Jews that only increased as they moved into December. Aaron, when they happened to see him, looked grim and hollow. Jean joined the Women’s Voluntary Service and worked with the Movement for the Care of Children from Germany to place the trains full of children pouring into the country. Several times they came home from the office to find two or three shell-shocked children slurping soup around their table—“only over night,” Jean promised, “until we can get them to their foster homes.”

“As long as they need,” they agreed, and so some of the refugees stayed a few days longer, until they looked like more like children than ghosts.

Additionally, Fitz had more Whitehall work than ever, pulling Jemma from her own research to help him oversee the day-to-day business of MI. “Perhaps you ought to name me co-President after all,” she grumbled one night as they collapsed, exhausted, into bed. “I’m doing enough of the work.”

“I know, I know.” Fitz left off stroking her hair to pinch the bridge of his nose. “I hate asking you to leave your work—”

Instantly ashamed of herself, she corrected him quickly: “You aren’t asking, I’m offering.”

“There’s simply no one else clever enough—and Andrews would be worse than I am in those rotten meetings—”

“Fitz, I _know—_ ”

“—but I’m doing everything I can to let you get back—”

She pushed up onto her elbow and pulled his hand down, forcing him to meet her eyes. “ _Fitz_.”

He closed his mouth with a snap and blinked up at her guiltily. Taking his face between her hands, she kissed his forehead, his cheeks, his eyelids, and finished with a lingering kiss to his mouth. “I know,” she said again once the worried wrinkles smoothed away. “I’m glad to help, really. You help me so often; it’s my turn now. I’m sorry I was cross.”

His eyes darted over her shoulder before returning, a shadow of discomfort still lingering. “I just wish you didn’t have to abandon your work. It’s important.”

“But remember?” She fisted her left hand and tapped the great blue stone against his cheekbone. “You’re more than that. Always.”

He took a deep, shuddering breath, closing his eyes briefly while the corner of his mouth twitched into conviction. Then, allowing it to curve up into the half-smile he saved just for her, he met her earnest gaze again and said, “I believe you. But you have to let me try to let you go back to the lab because your happiness is more important to me than MI.”

“If you feel you must.” Returning to her preferred place on his shoulder, she smiled as his unconscious kiss dropped on the crown of her head. “That said, you _are_ going to be able to go to Verinder Hall for Christmas, aren’t you? Only I think my mother might murder me.”

“We can’t have that,” he said, “think of how embarrassing it would be for Sir Robert.” She wrinkled her nose against his chest and felt a matching grin in her hair. “Yes, I’ve had Andrews black out those dates in the diary. I don’t have to be back until the 27th. And then I’ve got New Year’s Day as well, so we can stay up on Hogmanay.”

“On _what_?” she asked, peering up at him without lifting her head.

“Hogmanay. Remember?”

“No, Fitz, or I wouldn’t have asked.”

“Oh, that’s right—we weren’t married last year. You were still up doing research.”

“We _are_ still newlyweds, really.”

“Are we?” he asked, surprised. “Sometimes it feels like it’s been ages, like I can hardly remember my life before you. Then other times I can hardly believe my good luck—but I don’t expect that to go away, however long we’re married. It’ll always be true.”

“It’ll never be true,” she corrected, “because there isn’t any such thing as luck.”

“How do you explain it, then? How are we so happy and so many other people aren’t?”

How many times had she asked herself that question over the last few months? Too many to count. When every day provided a new tragedy to mourn, the deep contentment and bliss that grounded her petty frustrations seemed not only anomalous, but unfair. The parade of children without parents, Aaron’s family disappeared behind a wall of silence, Sylvia with her chin up and her heart broken, even Mrs. Osbourne so dependent on a relationship that she felt she could lose at any time—what right had Jemma to be happy? So she gave him the only answer she had come to, unsatisfying as it was: “I don’t know. Perhaps we never will. But it isn’t very important, is it, Fitz? As long as we don’t waste it.”

In response, he wrapped his arms more firmly around her, holding her to him with an unbreakable grip. She let out a quiet _oompf_ before burying her face into his neck to breathe deeply, his end-of-day whiskers scratching pleasantly against her forehead. “So,” she said, “what do you think we should do about it?”

His answer came almost immediately, as though he had been waiting for her to ask. “I think,” he rumbled, “we ought to discuss keeping one or two of Mam’s children on a more permanent basis.” She wriggled a bit, trying to say she had been considering the same thing, but he continued without giving her a chance. “And I’d like to give a party at Hogmanay.”

Though she still didn’t know what Hogmanay was, the details mattered less than the broader request. “Goodness, you’re becoming a regular master of ceremonies. Do you mean a proper party, or only Aaron and Mr. Biggs?”

“And Sylvia. And the boys from the band. And whomever Mam likes. Maybe some of her children, if it isn’t unhealthy for them to stay up so late—”

“Fitz!”

She pulled back as far as she could without disturbing his hold; he let her go, just a bit, and dropped his chin to his chest to catch and keep her eyes. “Only,” he said, answering her unspoken question, “it feels like everything’s awful, doesn’t it? Like we’re all going to Hell in a handbasket. But it’s not actually true, I don’t think.”

“Why not?”

The tips of his fingers brushed against her cheek before tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. “At the very least, I’ve still got you. And that’s worth celebrating.”

If Jemma closed her eyes, the headlines from the last few weeks whirled around her, snapping apart every so often to reveal one of the sad-eyed refugees or the terrible weapons from the schematics papering Fitz’s desk. And yet despite that, her fluttering gladness refused to be still, waking new every morning and coming to rest in his arms every night. Someday, Jemma thought, she might learn how to let the feelings inflating her heart spill out into words as well as Fitz did. In the meantime, she tipped her forehead against his and smiled, knowing without looking he was doing the same. “It certainly is,” she said quietly.

“And it does us good to have friends together and remember not everything is lost, don’t you think?”

“I do,” she said, and held their position a moment longer before dropping a kiss to the side of his nose as she rolled over to switch on her bed lamp. Fitz groaned, slitting his eyes open only to squeeze them tight shut again.

“I thought we were sleeping, Simmons.”

“We were.” Rooting around in the drawer of her sidetable, she found a pad and a pencil with a cry of triumph. “Only then you decided we ought to throw a party for Hogmany, whatever that is—”

“Hogman- _ay_ ,” he corrected, pushing himself up to rest against the headboard. “Does it have to be planned this very moment?”

She scooted up beside him, propping the pad on her knee and licking the tip of her pencil. “It’s only seventeen days away. We can’t waste any more time.”

He collapsed onto her shoulder with a rockslide grumble and a fleeting press of his lips against the silk, letting his eyes flutter closed and sighing resignedly. Jemma wove her left hand into his hair and moved her right as little as possible. She didn’t mind if he fell asleep, as long as he was there.

 

* * *

 

As it turned out, seventeen days wasn’t quite enough to throw together a Hogmanay party, even with midnight planning; the final guest list was comprised primarily of Jean’s fellow trench-workers, who hadn’t been invited anywhere really smart. Neither Fitz nor Jemma minded. “We always expected to be the odd ones,” Fitz said the night of the party, taking a step back to cast a critical eye at the bundles of scotch thistles he’d placed on either side of the drawing room fireplace.

“Perhaps not quite so odd,” Jemma said from her place on the sofa, where she was attempting to fold the blue-and-red plaid at her shoulder so that her newly purchased broach would hold it. “Oh, bother, it’s slipped again.”

He came over and took the pin from her, jabbing with practiced hand. “I’m not sure odd has degrees. You’re either respectable or odd.”

“Or if you’re very rich, eccentric—perhaps we can be eccentric, instead.” She smiled fondly at his concentrated frown, only keeping herself from smoothing it from his forehead by remembering her very strong desire to remain unpricked. “I hope you’re not too bored, since Aaron isn’t coming until later. Your mother’s friends are very interesting but they do talk a great deal about diseases and sewers.”

Making a noise that signified both _no_ and _yes_ , he said “I’ll be playing most of the night, anyway. And there will be games, and we can always discuss the _kinder_.”

His accent attempting German made her laugh and duck her head against his shoulder. “Jakob and Lise.”

“Of course I know their names, Jemma—do stop squirming or I’ll stick you—if you had my accent you wouldn’t be so glib—”

“Only I’m not certain they’ll be able to understand your German—”

“For goodness’ sake, I can read it fine—”

“Perhaps we ought to give them their own pocket notebooks and you can communicate—”

“—have to learn eventually, won’t I?”

“—hope they’re quick learners.”

They grinned at each other almost giddily, both their hearts thumping double-time with seasonal spirits and the glee that comes from good works. Much more quickly than they would have thought possible, their application to foster had been approved and a pair of siblings would be joining them in exactly two days. A pity, they all thought, that they hadn’t come in time for the party, but it offered time enough to prepare the house from top to bottom. Fitz especially had seized the task with enthusiasm, coming home nearly every night with something new for their guests—a model aeroplane, or a stuffed bear, or a stack of secondhand books in German. She found it equal parts ridiculous and adorable. Of course, she found nearly everything he did adorable, including the way he stuck his tongue out and furrowed his forehead when he focused on something. As he did now, before a tiny _snick_ signaled him to relax.

“There,” he said. “A proper Highland lass. Just don’t talk, or you’ll spoil it.”

Rolling her eyes, she got to her feet and shook out the tartan skirt. “I know it’s your family plaid but it feels a bit like fancy dress, not something that properly belongs to me. Thank goodness it matches you and Jean or I’d look a fraud before all these people.” She glanced up from her self-appraisal to find him watching her with a soft, glowing contentment tugging at his lips. “What?”

“Nothing,” he said, stuffing a hand in his pocket, “only, this is another of those times. Thank you, my brilliant wife, for wearing it to remind me that it does properly belong to you, and so do I.”

Whatever trepidation she had about her outfit disappeared with a _pop_ , unsustainable in the face of his pleasure. “Fitz, of course.”

“Speaking of”—he consulted his watch—“I’d better go dress myself. It takes much longer to put on than one might think.”

“But worth the effort,” she said, feigning sobriety. “I’m very appreciative, at least. It’s such a pity Sylvia can’t come; she doesn’t believe me when I say how dashing you look.”

“What?” he gasped, aggrieved, “of course I look—wait, Sylvia isn’t coming? Why not?”

Jemma frowned at the memory of their conversation. “She said she had another invitation. I hope it’s the truth, but she was twisting a pencil so hard I thought she’d break it.”

“You think she’s staying in?”

“And perhaps she is—her new boardinghouse is pleasant enough she might have found friends there. The difference a bit of money makes.”

Fitz narrowed his eyes thoughtfully. “Well, that won’t do. If we sent Mr. Biggs around to fetch her, do you think she would come?”

“Certainly not, nor should she—even so august a solicitor as Mr. Biggs can’t demand her presence. If it’s not a legal matter, I mean.”

“But she ought to be here with her friends,” he said, “do you think if I rang—”

Her fingers flitted across his forearm, drawing him back from his flight towards the phone. “I think we had better leave her be, Fitz. She knows she’s welcome if she’d like to come.”

“But—” He cut himself off with a brisk shake of his head. “Never mind. I’m going to dress now. Would you like to come?”

“Of course,” she said, taking his offered hand.

Although Sylvia missed her opportunity to ogle Fitz in a kilt, their other party guests more than made up for her absence. Jean’s friends were, to a woman, absolutely flabbergasted; those attending with husbands averted their gazes while those uncharitably termed “superfluous women” seemed unable to tear their eyes away. Struggling to contain her laughter, Jemma held tightly to her mother’s training in hospitality and concentrated on identifying each shade her poor Fitz turned as he fielded compliment after compliment. She counted seven at least, taking the opportunity to tell him so in the lull following their introduction to a particularly nice elderly lady who had directed the entirety of the conversation to his tasseled socks.

An eighth rushed up the back of his neck only to be quickly covered by his hand. “Perhaps the kilt was a mistake.”

“Nothing of the sort,” she responded, plucking his elbow to return his hand to its proper place between them, “unless the attention’s encouraging your hubristic tendencies. I did tell you that you have heaps of s.a.”

He raised both eyebrows, his attempt at nonchalance betrayed by the pink tinge at the tips of his ears. “Yes, well, you’re my wife. And that’s my massive intellect, anyway, not my…lower limbs.”

“It’s the knees, actually,” said their next guest to greet. Fitz flushed a ninth color as Jemma laughed and welcomed their guest.

“So I’ve already told him. Were we expecting you?”

Larry Osbourne shook both their hands in turn, waving his free one towards the rector and his wife of the horrible claret and the many-named maid, who were currently in cheery conversation with Jemma’s mother-in-law. “Came with the padre. He thought it would be best to decline the other invitations I received—lead me not into temptation, you know. Although if I hear the golden trump of the Black Silk Trio I rather think I’ve come out best.”

“You do,” Fitz said, “and if you’ll excuse me I’d better go join them. Difficult for anyone to stare at my knees if they’re hidden under the piano.”

He disappeared into the drawing room without further ado but with a quick brush of his knuckles against the back of her hand, and her smile bloomed a secret as she turned her attention back to Larry. “I’m glad you came,” she said, meaning it, “after the last time we saw each other, well…”

Larry nodded somberly. “Bit of a to-do, what? Awfully rough on the girls. Well, not Daph, nothing keeps her down long, but Mater—”

Before he could tell her the information she wished most to know, Jean apologetically interrupted with a formal introduction and the information that everyone she expected had arrived. “Except Aaron, of course,” she added as an afterthought, “but he won’t come until later.”

“Very well, then,” Jemma said, “we’ll begin. Do curates dance, Mr. Osbourne?”

She had a brief moment of trepidation, afraid that her address might remind him too much of his father, but he appeared more disconcerted by her question. “Well, I haven’t, as a rule…but perhaps in this one case, I might? If Mr. Fitz-Simmons doesn’t mind, seeing as he’s occupied? After all, as Solomon says in Ecclesiastes, ‘Then I commended mirth, because a man hath no better thing under the sun, than to eat, and to drink, and to be merry.’”

The rector cleared his throat. “Perhaps ‘a time to dance’ might be a more appropriate quotation? Seeing as we’re only to eat and be merry because man’s life under the sun is otherwise vanity?”

“Oh yes,” Larry said apologetically, “drat, I thought that was a particularly good one, too.”

“Lovely, dear,” Jean said kindly.

Jemma brushed aside her own unease to take Larry’s elbow and lead the group into the drawing room. “Fitz would be delighted. He hates dancing himself and only does it to please me. Perhaps you’ll do me the honor of the first one?”

“With pleasure,” he said, exuding both that and obvious relief.

After a few _come to attention_ blats, Trip swung into ‘The Lambeth Walk’—a choice that always drew cheers at Lola, but resulted in a great many confused stares at this particular party. Jemma wouldn’t have been surprised if she was the only member of the group to know the dance. Rapping his knuckles against the piano, Fitz stopped the song. “Give us a beat, Mack, and we’ll riff ‘Annie Laurie’. One, two, and a—”

Their second attempt had more success, and the third even more, until the entire group stepped and swung across the parquet floor. Out of breath by the fourth, Jemma dropped out to watch and oversee refreshments, smiling as she viewed the group: shabby spinsters and courtly gentlemen, Mr. Biggs spinning Jean, Larry cutting up for three middle-aged women in the center of the room, Fitz with his tongue poking out again, deep in the music. Not too deep, though, to feel her watching him; without looking at her, he moved his left hand up a few keys and changed the song somehow—improvisation, she guessed from the way Mack rolled his eyes to the ceiling. It drove Mack and Trip mad when he did that, but she always loved the little sign of how their presence changed each other.

When the song ended, Mack fixed Fitz with a significant stare and pointed his drumstick Jemma’s direction. Fitz sheepishly put down the piano’s lid and came around to her, his hands propped on his hips due to his lack of pockets. “Apparently they think it’s time we dance,” he said, offering his hand.

She took it but made no movement beyond swinging their clasp in time with the beat. “Oh, let’s give it a moment. I’m not certain there’s enough room for your flailing limbs out there, no matter how shapely they are.”

Fitz blushed and glared at the same time—goodness, how she loved making him do that—and would, no doubt, have chastised her indignantly if Larry had not picked that precise moment to come gasping off the floor. “You wouldn’t think it to look at them,” he heaved, reaching for a finger of whisky, “but those aunties have more energy than the Bright Young Things who used to be my dancing partners.”

“Vegetables and brisk walks,” Jemma said wisely. “Puts a spring in one’s step.”

“Must try it, what? If I want to live to a ripe old age.” Larry tossed back his drink and smacked his lips. “Egad, that’s good. Whisky in the home of a Scot’s always best, what?”

“It would be embarrassing if it was bad,” Fitz pointed out.

“True, true.” Rolling the glass in his hand, Larry looked out at the floor for a moment before turning to them, suddenly serious. “I know we’re having a gay old time and so on, but I did want to thank you again for, er, for what you did. It really helped settle Daphne—she’s given up those rotten paintings—and Iris is grateful too, really. As am I. One sleeps better at night knowing one’s father’s killer isn’t drinking champagne and wearing furs. Perhaps that’s not very Christian, but if we were perfect what would the Spirit do?”

“Just so,” Fitz answered, thankfully taking the task from Jemma, “and your mother? How is she?”

Larry put the glass mouth down on the table, staring at the magnified tablecloth below. “She’s…still not well. Much the same, really, if not worse. I know it’s fanciful, but I really think she might be dying of a broken heart.”

Fitz looked at Jemma from the corner of his eye, and she ducked her gaze quickly. A broken heart indeed, they thought, cracked by grief and pulverized by guilt.

Still concentrated on the glass, Larry sighed. “I’m trying to have her come to church with me—even if she doesn’t find the peace that passeth understanding as I have, I thought perhaps she’d take an interest in the charity work we’re doing there. There’s so much good to be done, if she could find something else to think about besides Pater—”

“Perhaps that’s not the right charity,” Fitz said quickly. Larry and Jemma both looked at him, and he stumbled a little over his next sentence, the ideas coming too fast to be neat: “a good charity, and an important one, but perhaps there’s something she could do that would remind her of your father. Or perhaps nothing to do with him, like the—the _kindertransport_. My mother works with them and I know they always need volunteers. We’re taking a few children ourselves next week. They’ve lost a great deal, too. Perhaps she could understand what they’re experiencing?”

A stroke of genius, really—they had suggested there might still be good for Mrs. Osbourne to achieve, but she had neither believed nor agreed with them. Coming from Larry, her favorite child, though, the idea might have more success. And what had Mrs. Osbourne most regretted but that the government had essentially abandoned the Jews to their fate? The trains were a small but sure step in the other direction. Seized with a strong desire to wrap her arm around Fitz’s neck and tell him how brilliant he was, Jemma merely took a step closer, making their plaids blur around their knees. “That’s true. There are so many groups involved, she’s sure to find someone that needs her.”

“Perhaps.” Larry looked pensive. “The Dowager Mrs. Fitz-Simmons knows about it?”

“Oh, er, it’s just Mrs. Fitz, not Fitz-Simmons.” Fitz gestured at Jemma. “My wife is the only Mrs. Fitz-Simmons.”

Larry goggled at them. “What, really? Frightfully sorry, old chap, I suppose I should have known. Only you seem like a family that’s been here since the Domesday Book. How embarrassing. I suppose that’s my signal to toddle off. Cheer ho until later I expect.” And he escaped back onto the dance floor, finding his rector’s wife and twirling her under his arm.

“Was that a compliment?” Fitz slid closer still. “I think it was meant to be, but as a card-carrying member of the Scottish Socialist Party I’m not sure I can take it as one. It goes against my principles to be one of them.”

She laughed, pretending she needed his support to stay standing. “Fitz, we’re wearing matching plaid while serving whisky and little oat cakes for refreshments at a party we’re throwing for Hogmany. I hardly think you’ll ever be one of Them.”

“Hogman- _ay_ ,” he corrected with a groan for the hundredth time at least, “and that reminds me, we ought to get the cakes out and start the charades while everyone’s still got energy. I’ll just go tell the boys.”

He walked away, kilt swinging, and she admired him for a moment before going to find Lane. Apparently the cakes had to be served piping hot; if the time had come he needed to be given the signal.

They played charades for an hour at least, granting the laurel crown to Mr. Biggs with an honorary mention to Mack for his excellent portrayal of Tank, and moved onto Animal, Vegetable, Mineral with great gusto. After several rounds in which Fitz and Jemma needed only a handful of questions to guess such disparate items as the piano strings, an astrolabe, and capuchin monkeys, they were forcibly voted out and spent the remainder of the game playing naughts-and-crosses on increasingly larger grids. Trip, on his way back to his seat with another handful of oat cakes, peered over their shoulders. “I think you’re the only two people I know who would be happy playing tic-tac-toe for hours.”

“Strategy,” Fitz said dismissively, but Jemma sat up with a gasp.

“Hours, truly?” A consultation with her watch answered in the affirmative, showing the hands ticking towards eleven. “And Aaron isn’t here yet! Fitz, ought we ring the police? What if something’s happened to him?”

“Nothing’s happened.” He swooped down with a satisfied smirk and placed his X in the perfect position to block her first, second, and fifth strategies. “He’s not meant to come until just after midnight. He’s going to be the First Footer.”

Yet another tradition she had never heard of. “What?”

Trip laughed. “Man, you should have had Mack do it. I think he was a little hurt you didn’t ask him last year, since he’s much taller than I am.”

“But, objectively, you’re more handsome.”

“What?” Jemma asked again, deciding on her third strategy and marking a square accordingly. Fitz let out an unhappy squawk.

Trip took pity on her. “It’s a Scottish tradition. The first person to visit you in the new year brings luck or something, and the luckiest kind of visitor is a tall, dark, and handsome man.”

Fitz took his pencil from his mouth, where he had lodged it while considering his next move. “I know he’s not especially handsome, but he’s both tall and dark. And he had something to do tonight, anyway, so he would have been coming late regardless.”

“How long does this party go after midnight?” she asked, a trifle faint.

“Into the wee hours!” Fitz said happily. “Trip, is it time to start the dancing again? I still owe my wife a spin.”

Despite her objections, they resumed playing at the end of the round of charades, even before Jemma had thoroughly trounced Fitz in their thirty-eighth game. This time, though, they played slower songs, allowing people to drift to the corners of the room for quiet chat or silent examination of closed eyelids. Jemma sat on the piano bench with Fitz, trying not to let her head drop to his shoulder and failing more often than she succeeded. It was so late, and she was so tired, and if she let her eyes fall out of focus just a bit she could pretend she and Fitz were alone on a raft of glorious music, and she couldn’t think of a better way to enter the new year.

She didn’t know how much later it was that she felt the familiar softness of his lips against her forehead. “C’mon, Simmons,” he said gently. “Up you get. It’s time for Auld Lang Syne.”

She allowed him to pull her to her feet and into the center of the room, where she was mildly surprised to find that he kept hold of her hand even before the circle of guests around them. “This is an old tradition,” he said, “like a great deal of this evening has been, I suppose. Usually the whole room sings the song, but none of you know it, so my mother and I will do the honors. But, um, I’m afraid you have to clasp hands—cross your arms, like this.”

Dropping her hand for a moment, he retrieved it with the hand on the opposite side of his body. On Jemma’s other side, Jean crossed her arms like she was going to pull a cracker and took Jemma’s right hand in her left. The circle slowly linked, tightening into a dozy, curious knot and waiting for whatever came next.

Fitz ran his thumb over Jemma’s ring and cleared his throat before humming a note.

A beat.

Then, from either side of Jemma rose a song so beautiful and melancholy she wanted to cry—perhaps only because she was tired, but she doubted it. Fitz and Jean’s voices twined together, rasping over unfamiliar words that seemed right from their mouths; though she couldn’t understand them individually, she knew what they meant together. It was a song of remembrance for things past, but also one that suggested the good old days hadn’t gone forever. For the first time, Fitz’s desire to celebrate Hogmanay specifically made sense—he wanted the reminder in the middle of the darkness that not all was lost. And perhaps to remind everyone else too. The dear, _dear_ man.

The song drew to a close just as the mantle-clock began to strike:

_One. Two. Three._

The room counted aloud with one voice.

_Four. Five. Six._

Jemma felt Jean’s hand tighten around hers, and she pressed her mother-in-law’s calloused, strong hand back.

_Seven. Eight. Nine._

Fitz’s fingers twirled her ring around her finger three times, a special code: _I love you_ or _more than that_ or _maybe there is_ or all three.

 _Ten. Eleven. Twelve_.

A pregnant silence filled the room. What were they waiting for, Jemma wondered, feeling it weigh her chest down.

“God bless 1939,” Larry said.

As though his prayer broke the ice, the circle broke into celebration, people dropping hands only to clasp them again with a laugh and good wishes. Fitz took advantage of the general confusion to kiss her quickly before turning to pound Mack on the shoulder. Embracing Jean, Jemma forgot what was meant to happen next until she became vaguely aware of a draft and glanced towards the door. Lane swung it open, as polished as ever, and roared to be heard over the crowd: “Mr. Klein!”

Aaron appeared, still wearing his jacket and gloves—at least one glove, because the other remained in the hall as though someone—

“And Miss Forbes!” Lane cried, and Jemma’s jaw dropped open as Sylvia followed Aaron in, her soft grey glove nestled like a dove in his hand and her eyes glowing gold with delight.

“First footer, first footer!” Fitz shouted, hurrying towards the door, and Jemma flew to his side so they all four nearly collided on the sill.

“I hope it doesn’t count as bad luck that someone else came with me?” Aaron asked, somehow saluting Jemma at the same time that he pumped Fitz’s hand up and down. “I made sure to come in first, though every chivalrous feeling revolted.”

“We don’t believe in luck,” Jemma said dazedly, not entirely certain she wasn’t dreaming. “Sylvia, you said you couldn’t come!”

Sylvia laughed, a clear high ring of bells. “I said I had something to do this evening, and I did. I never said I wouldn’t come after. Did we surprise you?”

“Astounded me,” she said.

“Which has hardly ever been done,” Fitz said proudly, “and is worth commemorating. Come in, have a drink—I think coffee will be coming shortly, in deference to a crowd of teetotalers. You may have whisky if you like, of course. And your coats, goodness, where’s Lane—”

He pulled them all into the room, one hand hovering at the small of Jemma’s back and the other pushing Aaron and Sylvia together so he could introduce them all around, and Jemma’s questions had to wait for answers. Explicit answers, that was, because she received plenty of subtle ones just by watching: the practiced way Aaron poured milk in Sylvia’s coffee, the easy way they used their given names, the bashful way Sylvia couldn’t help finding him in the crowd no matter whom she happened to be speaking to. Jemma simultaneously wanted to clap her hands in glee and clap herself upside the head for not thinking of it sooner. What sort of friends were she and Fitz, to allow such a perfect thing to happen by accident?

“Why do you think I wanted her to come?” Fitz asked _sotto voce_ sometime in the wee hours as they shoved the furniture back into position. “I thought it would be something ages ago.”

“Ages!” Jemma glanced across the now sparsely peopled room to where the pair in question stood receiving Jean’s instructions about breakfast in the morning. The mass of faithful churchgoers went home together shortly after midnight, but the late arrivals had been invited to stop for the night and keep out of the bitter January cold. Even with the perfectly respectable distance between them, Jemma didn’t think she imagined the way they swayed towards each other as they listened. “Why didn’t you say anything sooner?”

“I did! Only you didn’t know what I meant. And then we had to sort the thing with the Osbournes, and we scarcely saw Aaron, and we had enough else to think about, honestly.” He leaned against the back of the chair and followed her gaze. “You do think it’s a good thing, though, don’t you?”

“I do. Of course I do. Only—”

He smirked. “Only you’re cross you didn’t know about it earlier. Well, we’ve always known I’m better at observation, Simmons.”

Tossing her hair, she sniffed imperiously. “But I’m better at retrieving information. You may have known first, but I will know more by the time we go to bed.”

“Is that a challenge?” He raised one eyebrow. “What will I get when I win?”

“ _When_ you win? I think all those compliments went to your head after all.” He snorted, and she rolled her eyes. “Prizes to be negotiated at a later time.”

“I accept those terms.”

By mutual if silent consent, once Jean went to bed they divided to conquer, Fitz taking Aaron into the study on the pretense of a finance question while Jemma settled with Sylvia before the dying fire. Sylvia sipped her coffee deliberately, having to fight to keep her smile from overwhelming her face. Jemma leaned back against the arm of the couch and kept quiet.

“Go on,” Sylvia said, “I know you’re about to die of curiosity.”

“No,” Jemma protested, “of course not. I respect your desire for privacy. That is, of course I’m curious, but you know what happened to the cat—”

“Satisfaction brought it back, didn’t it?” Sylvia laughed, pressing her fingers to her cheeks. “Actually, it’ll be a relief to tell someone—I haven’t wanted to say anything, for fear I’m being a silly girl and drawing faulty conclusions from quite innocent evidence, but I really think—that is, recent events suggest that my conclusions were right all along.”

“What recent events?” Jemma asked, on the literal edge of her seat.

“A lady never tells.” But the smile finally won its battle as Sylvia looked towards the fire, catching her bottom lip between her teeth as her face flushed rosily and her eyes went hazy with memory. Recalling New Year traditions, Jemma had to pinch herself sharply to keep from flying at her friend in delight. Oh, God _bless_ Aaron—was that, or was that not, the look of a girl who had been recently and thoroughly and deservedly kissed?

“And a good friend doesn’t demand,” she said instead, “so I won’t, either, but tell me, Sylvia, truly: you do like him, don’t you?”

“Yes.” The golden light shining from Sylvia’s eyes when she turned back nearly blinded Jemma with its brightness and purity and hopefulness, so radiant that Jemma had the distinct impression that she had looked into the sun. “I thought it was only friendship at first—not that it was especially like _our_ friendship, but we’re women and fellow-scientists, so it’s different.” Jemma nodded. “We went to the Natural History Museum, or to a film—one afternoon we chose a puppy for him to give his niece. I did think it a bit odd that we happened to ride the same bus from the office more often than not, but I could explain that away until I moved and began taking a different bus and he came too. Why would he do that? It must be a great deal longer for him.”

Jemma had a decent guess, but didn’t offer it.

Sylvia dropped her eyes to her hands lying still in her lap, her eyelashes veiling the ideas flickering across her face with the shadows from the fire. “But that’s like him,” she said finally. “He doesn’t seem to care much about himself if there’s something he can do for someone else. For me, I suppose. When we’re together, even though I know he has a hundred things worrying him, he forgets them. No, that’s not exactly it. He puts them aside to think about me instead. He’s so—kind, really, Jemma, and generous—not with money, but with himself—and careful—it’s so different to _anything_ I’ve known before. It’s so odd to want to laugh all the time. I’m so much more accustomed to gritting my teeth and bearing it.”

Jemma didn’t even try to stop the tears from welling in her eyes. “Sylvia, I’m _so_ glad. You deserve it, dear—not just the second-best man alive, but to be _happy_.”

“I am.” Her laugh this time held disbelief along with the joy, which would have made Jemma’s tears overflow was the joy not so obvious. “Can you believe it?”

“I can, and I do.”

She leaned in, pitching her voice low as if to share a secret. “Do you know, he sent me a postcard the other day for no particular reason? Just an ordinary postcard of the Houses of Parliament that said ‘Isn’t it marvelous what can be built after everything burns?’ I’ve never found that true in my entire life, but Jemma, I think I might be able to believe it now.”

This time Jemma couldn’t help herself, and she wrapped her arms around Sylvia’s shoulders and let her glad tears fall against her hair. After so many times she had held Sylvia through heartbreak, they both deserved an embrace to celebrate new joy. It seemed like a good way to begin a new year.

 

* * *

 

 

Fitz snuck into their bedroom as quietly as possible, fully expecting Jemma to be in bed and asleep. Neither he nor Aaron had paid much attention to the time until they realized neither of them could get through a sentence without a yawn splitting their faces, startled to find the hands of the clock pointing at half past two. No wonder he had heard the fire pokers rattle in the other room some time ago; Jemma had been awake before dawn and busy all day. He would tell her everything tomorrow.

But when he turned from closing the door, he found her standing at the window still fully dressed, staring unseeingly into the street. “Jemma?” he whispered, “are you all right?”

She turned enough to look over her shoulder, her arms clasped around her stomach. “Of course, sweetheart. I didn’t want to end the day without seeing you, that’s all.”

“Well,” he said, unbuckling his sporran and dropping it on the floor by her dressing table. “You would have woken up when I got in, I’ll bet. I think my hands are colder than yours tonight.”

“Oh, I doubt it.” But she shrieked when he came up behind her and put his hands over hers, tucking his chin into her shoulder. “Fitz! You’re like ice. I didn’t know it was possible.”

“We let the fire die down,” he murmured, “too busy talking to notice.”

She craned her neck to meet his eye. “Do you still think you’re going to win?”

He shook his head, making her shudder as his rough cheek scraped at the soft skin of her jaw. “Unless you haven’t got anything. He didn’t want to talk about it—whether because he didn’t want to tell tales, or jinx it, or what, I don’t know. All he would say is that he’s handling the whole thing with only slightly less care than he handles the Torah.”

“Oh.” Her voice was soft as she resettled his arms more tightly around her. “The Torah’s like his Bible, isn’t it? That’s rather beautiful, Fitz.”

“Just so.” He kissed the junction of her neck and her shoulder, closing his eyes briefly to better relish her smell. “I’ll want to hear whatever you can tell me whenever you like, but for now I think you have a prize coming to you? What would you like?”

She kept silent for a moment, only canting her head to let him better come to rest. Either she hadn’t been thinking about it at all, or she had something enormous in mind. Her answer, when it finally came, made him catch his breath. “What would _you_ like? Not for a prize. For the new year. What do you wish for?”

He didn’t have to think about the answer, having one desire foremost in his mind at all times: “I want you to be happy, and I want to do everything in my power to help you be so.”

She made a soft noise, the quiet _mmm_ that he knew meant he had said something that gave her too many emotions at once. He could see her eyelashes fluttering against her cheeks contentedly, and felt a warm glow spreading through his chest to his fingers.

“But is that all, Fitz? You don’t want anything else?”

“Of course,” he said. “Of course. I wish for Mam to be happy and well-taken care of. I wish to somehow remain sane at MI. I wish to be helpful to Jakob and Lise. I wish that this thing with Aaron and Sylvia will end happily. I wish, though I don’t hold out a great deal of hope, that the PM has actually somehow managed to wrest peace for our time. But mostly, I hope that you have everything you need to be happy.”

“I do,” she said, “because I’ve got you.” She stirred, twisting so his hands fell to her hips and hers came to rest over his sternum. Even in the poor light eking through the window, he could see her forehead creasing thoughtfully. He butted his head against hers and waited. “Because,” she said after a minute, “you intentionally choose my happiness. Or, it’s not just my happiness, is it?”

“No.” He shook his head without moving it from hers. “And you don’t just choose mine.”

“Sylvia said something that made me think...she said Aaron doesn’t care about himself if there’s something he can do for someone else. And that’s what’s so different about him compared to Mark—Mark was only out for what he wanted. Even she was just a means to an end for him, really. If it was a choice he would choose himself.”

“Did you tell her that?”

“No. It’s only been while I’ve here that I’ve realized. I told her she had the second-best man alive.”

“Hmm.” His eyes flew open. “Wait, second—”

“Oh no, clearly the third-best—my father still beats. But third-best didn’t have quite the same ring.”

“Why not best, then?”

“Well.” She twinkled up at him. “She’d never believe me if I let him usurp you.”

He brushed a quick thank you across her cheek. “So you were staring out the window pondering Sylvia and Mark and Aaron.”

“And the Osbournes,” she said, “Larry made me think of it. Fitz, may I make you a promise?”

“Another one?” he asked lightly, only to bite his lip when he saw a frown flash across her forehead. “Sorry. Of course. Shall I make it too?”

“Perhaps hear what it is first.”

“Don’t have to,” he said, “if you’re willing to make it, so am I.”

Her mouth wobbled, taking on the almost-straight shape of solemnity fighting off delight, and she took his hands between hers as she took a step back. “Repeat after me, then: From this day forward—”

“From this day forward—”

“—I, Jemima Roberta Jane Fitz-Simmons—”

“—I, Leopold James Fitz-Simmons—”

Sucking in a breath, she lifted her chin and met his eyes unflinchingly. “—will choose you first, whenever there’s a choice. This is my solemn vow.”

“—will choose you first, whenever there’s a choice.” He closed his eyes briefly, anchoring himself to the moment with the feel of her cool skin in his hands and the quiet sounds of her breath, knowing that the promise wasn’t new but their understanding of what it meant was. Sometimes, he knew, there wouldn’t be a choice—the world wouldn’t allow them to be selfish, even if they could live with themselves after making that decision—and when that happened they would have to trust each other’s judgment and do the best they could with what they had. And every other time, as they had until now and meant to do always, they would choose the other person before anyone or anything on earth. Opening his eyes to meet hers, he finished his bit hoarsely. “This is my solemn vow.”

Raising their clasped hands to her mouth, she kissed their intertwined fingers. _Thank you_.

 _Anything. Always._ “And you? What do you wish for in the new year?”

She canted her head, considering. “Everything you said.”

“Copy-cat.”

“Can I help if you went first? But also—”

“Also?” he prompted, putting his arm around her shoulders to tug her into him. Their shadows behind them became one amorphous shape.

Glancing up at him, her smirk appeared even more mischievous than normal. “I’d like to finish my doctorate.”

“A reasonable goal,” he nodded, “a year and a half seems plenty of time, considering, and goodness knows it would be fun for you to be able to work on other things now and again. And then you’d be Doctor Fitz-Simmons—won’t that be marvelous?”

“It will,” she agreed, “but you’ve forgotten, Fitz, what else having my doctorate means. For us.” His eyebrows drew together, resulting in a tolerantly amused eyeroll from his wife. “You forgot,” she said with a deliberate glance over her shoulder, “that after I get my doctorate, we can begin work on another title. A set of titles, really, for the two of us.”

He followed her gaze into their bedroom, past the door and the vanity to the bathroom and—oh. What was on the other side of the bathroom. Presently a library, but in the future. . . “Er,” he said, clearing his throat. “Well, if you’re wishing that, I will too. For good luck. Not that wishes have any empirical value, or that there’s such a thing as luck, but—”

“I quite agree,” she said, only mock-serious. “You know I don’t hold with any of that. I believe if you want something, you have to work hard to earn it, Mr. Fitz-Simmons.”

“I quite agree, Mrs. Fitz-Simmons.”

“So—”

“So?”

She left the circle of his arm to reach forward and close the curtains. The room grew dark, but not so dark he couldn’t find her again. He could find her anywhere, as long as they kept their hearts and minds tied tight together.

“I think I’ll claim my prize now,” she said, putting her cold hand into his and rubbing her cold nose against his cheek. “Let’s go to bed, Fitz. I’ve already told Lane I’ll manage the breakfast tray. He won’t be coming to bother us in the morning.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's all she wrote—this time, at least!
> 
> A few notes:
> 
> 1\. My research indicates that there is no such thing as a Fitz plaid—which is only reasonable, as I believe that "Fitz" as a surname is a German thing and not Scottish at all, however many Fitzgeralds and Fitzgibbons are running around. However, the Macpherson plaid IS red and blue, so that's what they're wearing.  
> 2\. Aprops of a post I saw floating around Tumblr this week, I am fully aware that Aaron celebrates the New Year in October and all these festivities mean nothing to him, really. He's a good friend, that's all, and wants an excuse to kiss a girl he really likes. Rest assured the "What Aaron and Sylvia Did On New Year's" oneshot will address this issue.
> 
> And, finally: when I began writing this in April I would have never guessed it would carry me through until December. It's been a long, exhausting, arduous, wonderful process, and I have to thank all of you for at least 63% of the delight. I'm so grateful for your patience and enthusiasm about this long, complicated, hardly-fic-at all story. If it had a dedication, it would be to you.


End file.
